


Dragons, Demons, and Fables

by Scalas



Series: Dragons, Demons, & Fables [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Fablehaven AU, Fantasy AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2018-12-07 03:24:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11614857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scalas/pseuds/Scalas
Summary: “I feel like I’m being watched,” he mutters finally, uncomfortable with the feeling enough to voice it out loud.“By who?” Nami asks, peering around cautiously. “There’s nobody here but us.”“I dunno,” Zoro says, frustration curling in his chest as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “By the forest, I guess.”-- -- --Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, and Nami take a summer job at Grand Line; the Nature Preservation Usopp's dad works at. Shanks, the caretaker of the estate, is a carefree and kind of absent minded guy, and he's fun to work for. But is the Grand Line just anormalnature preservation? Or are the secrets it's hiding of amagicalnature...?(Spoiler; they are, and if Zoro lives through the summer, he promises not to piss off anymore dragons. Probably.)





	1. a summer job

**Author's Note:**

> ;w; I wrote this for my friend Katara and my girlfriend Sata. It's!!!! Gonna be a long one, friends, please bear with me. I hope to update every Tuesday/Wednesday. This is definitely a ZoLu story! I'll add more pairings as they pop up.

It’s about midday on a Saturday and the third floor of the Student’s Center is nearly empty. There are too many things to do on a weekend for people to really hang out on the exercise floor – like hang out on the entertainment floor on the floor above them, where the club rooms and the wii are at – so Zoro and his companion have it mostly to themselves.

Zoro, having had no classes that day, had been there all morning, testing the limits of the school’s benchpress while he waited for his friends to meet him. Usopp arrived around 11 or so, and spent at least ten minutes spreading out the entire contents of his backpack on a nearby table. Zoro had watched his approach, still counting his reps with the 200, knowing he didn’t need to greet the other until he was all settled.

When he finally was, with a laptop, his phone, and a lunch he probably bought at the school caf arranged in an array in front of him, he lifted a water bottle in offering and Zoro finally set his weights aside and went to join him.

That was two hours ago.

“Scary, isn’t it? Eh? Zoro. Zoro!”

Zoro grunts slightly and tears his eyes away from the window he's sitting by, tired brown eyes settling on the curly haired boy in front of him. The other is staring at him expectantly, a look which Zoro returns with a wholly unimpressed scowl of his own as he shifts his weight onto his other arm so he can rest his cheek there and pin the other with his gaze.

“What was it?” he asks, not particularly because he cares, but because he knows Usopp won’t stop badgering him until he listens.

The other wrinkles his (rather impressively sized) nose, his lips pursed in a familiar pout of disappointment. “You weren’t listening at all, were you?” It’s a rhetorical question. They both know he wasn’t.

Zoro stares at him. Precedence dictates that if he stares long enough, he’ll either answer him or he’ll drop the subject entirely. That’s how their friendship works. Usopp sighs, rolling his shoulders back a bit. The motion makes his bound back hair bounce and Zoro lets his gaze focus there for lack of anything else to focus on. He’s tired. He wonders if Nami and Sanji’s classes are over yet.

“I was telling you that Perona and I were talking the oth – don’t make that face at me, I’m allowed to talk to your sister – _we were talking the other day_ , and _she said_ that _she’s been_ talking to someone on her forum that claims he got lost in the woods and – this is somewhere in Portland, mind – says he was stalked through the night by some great beast – ! He was so afraid, he didn’t stop moving the whole night until he collapsed on the edge of the forest somewhere in the downtown area. And, _get this…_ when they went to investigate his claim, they only found the footprints of _what they presume_ was a huge wolf. But the reports on the actual nature of the tracks are _super sketch…_ you see?” He twists his laptop around to point at some pictures of holes in the dirt. “They’re WAY too big to be from a normal wolf! And elongated in certain areas not common with --” Usopp’s explanation cuts off and he smacks a hand on the table in front of Zoro. “ _Are you asleep?_ ”

He startles a bit. “No,” he says automatically. He might have been. He was listening, though. One hundred percent. “You’re talking about… dog. Print. Shirts.”

The look Usopp gives him is equal parts frustration and agony. “Wolf prints – as in _pawprints_ – in the woods in Portland. Too big for a normal wolf.”

“’S what I said.”

Usopp releases a long suffering sigh that Zoro feels might be a bit over-dramatic. Then again, it _is_ Usopp. He’s pretty sure over-dramatic is tattooed somewhere in his DNA.

“Why do I bother sharing this cool stuff with you, huh?” he laments, dropping his chin to rest in his hands. “Perona warned me about this.”

Zoro feels his expression twist in that way that it does whenever his sister is mentioned. It’s not that he hates her or anything extreme like that. They even get along, sometimes. Even still, he’s got a healthy amount of – _irritation_ towards her for various reasons that may or not include the _play doctor_ phase she went through during their youth. There’s only so many times a man can wake up dressed head to toe in messy _Paper_ - _mâché_ bandages before his faith in humanity is irreparably broken. “You know I don’t believe in that supernatural shit you’re both so obsessed with,” he grunts.

“But you practically live in Dracula’s manor,” Usopp whines. “It’s the scariest house I’ve ever seen!”

Zoro wrinkles his nose. “I didn’t buy the house, I was just born in it, probably.”

“Probably.”

He shrugs, leaning back in his seat and tugging at his uncomfortably damp tank top. “I could believe my dad was Dracula.”

Usopp snorts. “How is he anyway?”

He receives a very flat look for his effort. “I haven’t seen him in months.”

His friend frowns, peeling back the plastic cover on his _protein power lunch_. “He’s still not home?” He picks through the mix of almonds and raisins, separating them into two piles, and begins picking at the nuts.

“Nope,” Zoro says, reaching across the table to pick at Usopp’s raisins. He doesn’t particularly care for raisins, but the look of disgust Usopp gives him when he eats them is fun. “Got the usual care package of money for mortgage, bills, and food, a letter with my updated training regime, and one of those keychain voodoo dolls Perona likes.”

“Oh, well.” Usopp looks awkward, and fidgets with one of his apple slices for a moment.

“How’s your dad?” Zoro asks quickly, before Usopp decides to do something drastic, like ask him if he gives a flying fuck in Finland where his Probably A Vampire dad is. He _really_ doesn’t. Usopp likes talking about his dad, though – which is why Zoro knows he lives and works on nature preservation up in Vancouver when he’s not traveling, he hates mushrooms just as much as Usopp does, once shot an apple off his best friends’ head, and half of his wardrobe consists of headbands – so it’s a fair enough trade off.

Usopp’s face lights up a bit. “Oh, he’s great! He’s actually why I called you to come meet us today.”

Zoro looks around suspiciously. “Is he here…?”

Usopp snorts. “Yes, Zoro, he’s under the table.”

Zoro stares at Usopp for a long moment. Then, slowly, he leans back in his seat, not _quite_ breaking eye contact with Usopp, but also leaving himself open to dart a glance under the table. No Yasopp. Thank god.

“ _Zoro.”_

“Shut up!”

Usopp has his palm crammed up against his teeth to muffle the laughter, and Zoro is halfway to considering just kicking Usopp’s chair out from under him when the brunette’s eyes pop open wide and he leaps out of his seat himself to wave at something behind Zoro. “Over here, guys!”

Zoro turns in his seat. Nami is standing by the elevator, a few shopping bags adorning her arm, and definitely wearing different clothes than she was when she visited him up here this morning before stats. She’s helping Sanji off the elevator, his too-yellow hair mixing with her too-orange hair as he leans on her. The chef in training broke his leg a few months ago during an incident that Zoro had absolutely no part in whatsoever, and has been in a big, clunky walking cast since. Zoro might have felt bad for him (privately, and only _slightly_ ) but he knows for a fact he’s been having the time of his life with Nami doting over him. The thirty plus text messages per day about _the radiant Nami-swan_ and her _tender loving care_ have driven that point home. They’ve also driven Zoro to chucking yet another phone out a window.

(“The next phone we’re getting you is a Quantico,” Perona said to him, her lips puckered in a way that reminds Zoro of the time he tricked Sanji into eating three whole lemons. “It’s a flip phone and it’s _supposed_ to be indestructible.”

“I’ll figure out a way,” he promises her.)

Nami looks up when Usopp calls, smiling and giving him a little wave. She pauses to make sure Sanji is upright – he is, having shifted his weight onto his good foot when he heard Usopp. He nods to the other, letting Nami pass him before swinging his crutches expertly around to follow her, albeit at a slightly slower pace.

“Hey Usopp,” Nami says, giving the bouncing man a hug before quickly rounding the table to take the seat next to Zoro as part of the unspoken rule that Sanji and Zoro should never sit beside each other. She settles her bags down between her chair and Zoro’s, then fusses with her bag a bit until she finds her water bottle.

Zoro narrows his eyes at the colorful bags that are now beside him as Sanji settles into his seat beside Usopp and begins quietly berating him over the obviously store bought monstrosity of a lunch. “You went shopping?” he asks dryly.

Nami gives Zoro a sly-sweet smile and taps her perfectly polished nails on the tabletop. “The _Crimin_ Boutique by the library was having a _fantastic_ sale… you I know I can’t pass up a good deal.”

Zoro scowls. “The library is on the other side of this building, you would have had to round the block to even _see_ that stupid store, and Math is across the street --”

“Shh.” Nami presses a finger to his lips.

Zoro heavily considers biting her. He refrains, but only barely. He does shift away from her though, the dirty look on his face probably writing odysseys about the valiant effort he just put forth not to maim her. She gives him another sly-sweet smile and turns to Usopp and Sanji, who have finally stopped bickering about Usopp’s lunch.

“Stop glaring at Nami like that, mosshead,” Sanji grouses.

Zoro glares at him instead. His hair is way too light to be moss, thanks.

“Don’t you two start,” Nami warns, twisting the cap off her bottle and taking a drink. “So! Down to business. What did you want to talk to us about Usopp?”

Usopp’s entire face lights up, and he begins slapping his palms down on the surface of the table excitedly. That puts this conversation somewhere around an eight on the Usopp Scale Of Important Conversations, so the rest of them unconsciously angle themselves to face him fully.

“Well!” he exclaims. “My dad called me this weekend, like he usually does, and he said that he’s on this extended trip in the Mojave Desert so he can’t help his boss out at that preservation this summer like he usually does. Shanks – that’s his boss – is really short staffed this year, so! Dad asked, and Shanks offered us all jobs!”

Nami’s eyes widen. “What, seriously?”

Usopp nods rapidly, his poofy bun bouncing up and down with every motion. “Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah!” He turns slightly in his seat, letting his gaze catch with Sanji’s, who’s lips quirk automatically into stupidly fond little half-smile that Zoro’s only ever seen him give Usopp. “I told him about your leg and he says you can help in the kitchen and stuff!”

Sanji grins, bobbing his head absently so he can keep his eyes locked with Usopp’s. “Hell yeah! Hell yeah, you need a chef? I’m your chef.”

Nami laughs, clapping her hands together. “I’m definitely in! Working on a nature preservation sounds incredible! And I hear Vancouver is _gorgeous_ this time of year.”

Zoro leans back in his chair again, mulling it over a minute. Summer without Perona, and away from that stupid manor? “This preservation,” he asks. “It got a lot of room to run?”

Usopp turns to him, still nodding, his grin so wide it makes Zoro’s face ache in association. “Yeah! And Shanks says you can use his weights room, too.”

He hums. “Sounds fun.”

 

* * *

 

They leave a few days after classes end for the semester. They decide to drive up to Vancouver, a misguided and awful decision that defies logic. Nami swears up and down they had a good reason for deciding to make a forty five hour drive nonstop cross country, but after just six hours of radio war, Zoro and Sanji almost coming to blows several times, and one terrible instance of Usopp forgetting to pre-program the GPS to avoid toll roads, even she can’t remember what they were.

(“Are we there yet,” Zoro intones to the roof of the car. It’s not moving. They stopped to get gas twenty minutes ago.

“Eat your fucking Baskin Robbin’s, Marimo,” Sanji hisses from the front seat. His ice cream cone is huge. It has a doughnut on it. Zoro’s not sure when Sanji gave up on life.

“Guys,” Usopp whispers. “Guys. We’re in Dumfries. We’re actually in a town called Dumfries.”

“I hate you all,” Nami says from under a pile of blankets. Her eye mask has dollar signs where the eyes should be. “It’s my turn to drive in six hours and if Sanji or Zoro wake me one more time, I’m going to eviscerate everyone.”)

Over two days after they started their little trip, they arrive at the mouth of their new employers estate, tired, cranky, and with a new understanding that road trips are just as damaging to friendships as monopoly is.

Zoro leans on the steering wheel, staring up at the wrought iron gate that towers far above their car. Past the gate there’s nothing but trees and other foliage stretching on forever, the car path barely visible as it twists into the deep green and disappears.

“Is this really the place, Usopp?” Nami whispers. Zoro’s not sure why she’s whispering, but for some reason, he feels like if he tried to speak, he’d also whisper.

“Well,” Usopp mumbles, squinting at the looping lock on the gate. “I’ve got a key that my dad sent me?” He pulls out a large black key, seemingly made from the same metal as the lock. “It looks like it might be the one to this place, and this _is_ the only gate for miles...”

“Well,” Zoro grunts. Damn, he is whispering. “Go open it.”

Usopp fidgets. “Maybe Sanji could --”

“My _leg is broken_ ,” Sanji snips, running a hand through his hair in a tell-tale sign of nerves. “Just! Do it. We’re all right here. Nothing will happen.”

Usopp huffs and obediently slips out of the car and shuffles over to the gate. He stands in front of it, rocking back and forth on his feet. He looks small, his dad’s hand-me-down overalls hanging off his form, not enough for him to be swimming in them, but enough that it makes him look younger than he really is. Fumbling a bit, he lifts the key to the lock and slips it in.

It’s the sadist in him that everyone he knows insists is there that makes him lift a hand to rest above the car horn.

“Don’t you fucking dare--” Sanji hisses, but it’s too late.

The horn sounds – a short, barely-there beep because Zoro’s an asshole, but he’s not about to haul off and slam the horn at Brave Captain Usopp, He Who Oversees 8000 Anxiety Problems – and it’s enough to make Usopp _yelp_ , toss the key, and jump up to stand on the bottom slat of the gate in rapid succession. Zoro laughs and gets a smack from Nami.

Sanji takes it a step further and leaps forward from his spot in the backseat to hook an arm around Zoro’s neck and another under his dominant arm, pulling him back against the seat. “Hey Usopp, I’ll hold him, you punch –“

Nami laughs and grabs Zoro’s other arm as Usopp scurries over and begins playfully pounding on Zoro’s chest. Soon they’re all laughing, Zoro not putting much effort into trying to break away from his punishment (because he knows he deserves it), and they can feel the tension from the past two days seeping out of their collective conscious.

“Aw, crap,” Usopp says after they’re done torturing Zoro. It had devolved into tickle hell and Zoro nearly headbutted Sanji right in the nose so they’d declared him sufficiently punished. He pushes himself up a bit from where he’s hanging half in the drivers side window and pushes his bandanna back out of his eyes. “I dropped the key on the other side of the fence.”

“Way to fucking go, Zoro,” Nami groans, moving to unbuckle her belt. “Hold on, I’ll go get it.”

“Nah, I’ll do it,” Zoro says, unbuckling himself and easing Usopp out of the window so he can climb out after him. “My fault. Usopp, get in the drivers seat and drive it through when I have the gate open.”

Nami gives him a skeptical look as Usopp opens the door and slips into the drivers seat. “There’s no way you can fit through there,” she says. “It looks like it’d even be a tight fit for me.”

Zoro shrugs and walks over to the fence. The key landed too far away for him to just grab, so he shrugs and grabs the bars and begins to climb. It’s a little harder than it might normally be without footholds, but Zoro’s not Mr. Upper Body Strength for nothing. He pointedly ignores the playful catcalls from Nami ( _Woo, you go Zoro!_ ) and the probably not as playful insults from Sanji ( _God, he’s like King Kong_ ) and clears the top, swinging his legs over and resting on the arch for a moment as he looks over the sprawling green. It really is beautiful.

He climbs down and walks over to the key, picking it up and is turning back to the gate so he can unlock the padlock when he hears it. It’s soft, barely audible over the sounds of nature around him, but it’s almost unmistakable.

A laugh.

_Shishishishi…_

Zoro looks around, frowning. The sound seemed to come from his right, and he leans back to peer deeper into the trees. “Anyone there?” he calls. Maybe one of the other workers had come down to greet them?

“Boo, Zoro!” Nami calls. “So fake!”

“You already scared me once, Zoro, let it go!”

Zoro rolls his eyes and shakes himself, unlocking the padlock with no more difficulty and swings the gates open. Usopp drives the car through and Zoro re-locks the gate before jogging over to the driver’s side.

“Move it Usopp, I’m driving,” he declares, shoving at Usopp until the other moves. Usopp groans, but obediently climbs into the back with Sanji. Zoro gets in and puts the car in drive, going slow, just in case the path gets anymore overgrown than it already is.

Luckily, the path actually opens up as they get closer to the estate and he’s able to speed up a bit. As they approach, he happens to see a flash of something out of the corner of his eye – a dark haired guy wearing a worn straw hat, one hand lifted to his mouth, lips curved up and parted, as if in mid-laugh.

Zoro jerks a bit, slowing so he can crane his head around to look back. There’s nothing there.

“Zoro?” Nami asks, shooting him a curious look. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he says after a minute. “I’m fine.” He keeps driving.


	2. a small scare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nami, Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp get acquainted with the Grand Line, and get a small surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... largely exposition. And it kills me. I'm dead. I'm sorry. Franky shows up though, and I hope that makes up for it a little! And plot begins to happen towards the end, so there's that at least.

Shanks had to be one of the most genuinely bewildering people any of them have ever met. And since Zoro’s father is regularly referred to as _Count Fuckula_ by both friends and faculty, that’s definitely saying something.

Nami takes issue with his hair – _Red Delicious_ Red is not a natural hair color and _yet_ somehow even his stubble is hinting towards it. (“Nami, are you – and Zoro for that matter – _really_ the ones to judge?” “Who dyes their stubble, Usopp? _Who?_ ”) Sanji wrinkles his nose at their new employers fashion sense (and honestly, Zoro would agree if not for his policy of never agreeing with the chef. Who wears floral print khaki’s? Not to mention the long black shawl covering his left side is too close to a cape for Zoro’s liking.) He walks with an almost drunken sway, he’s wearing an unbuttoned vest instead of a shirt, and when they drove up Usopp swore up and down he saw him chatting with a falcon.

He smiles at them when they get out of the car, though, and Zoro thinks to himself that at the very least, he’s got a kind smile. The sincere kind that spreads wide and wrinkles the corners of his eyes. “I’m Shanks,” he greets them, a warm amusement in his voice as they approach. He seems like the type to find just about anything funny. “Welcome to the Grand Line.” He holds out his right hand to Usopp – large, weathered, and calloused – and grasps his tightly, giving a firm shake. “You must be Usopp.”

Usopp is looking up at him in that slightly starstruck way that he usually does when meeting new people that he deems _cool_. It occurs to Zoro then that Yasopp must talk about Shanks to his son a lot. “Yeah, that’s me,” he says. “And you must be Shanks!” He stops – flusters. “Uh, no. I mean. I.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Sanji supplies helpfully from where Nami is helping him out of the car.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Usopp parrots back.

Shanks laughs, and it’s so genuinely cheerful that Usopp doesn’t flinch back from it like he might usually if he thought he was being laughed at. “It’s nice to meet you, too!” the older man says. “Now.” He looks up at the others, gentle gaze alighting on each of them. “The girl must be Nami, and the one on the crutches is Sanji.”

When he looks at Zoro, he feels a strange chill – the tea red gaze looks somehow familiar and foreign at the same time. “And you must be Zoro.”

Zoro nods slowly, frowning just a touch. “Nice to meet you.”

Shanks smiles at him like he finds him and his words particularly amusing, then turns back to Sanji. “Sanji, I brought a wheelchair up from the shed. I’m going to take you all around the property and go over the rules, so I thought it might help out a little.”

Sanji gives him a grateful smile and hobbles over so he can lower himself into the chair. He grabs hold of the wheel tops and gives them a small push before Usopp is fluttering at his side, batting his hands gently away and grabbing the handlebars. Nami moves to shake Shanks’ hand as well while the two of them bicker under their breaths lightning fast over whether or not it’s really necessary for Usopp to push Sanji’s chair. After a moment – and a few soft assurances that Zoro tries not to hear – Shanks gestures and the group follows him through the gate and onto the property.

(“I know you can just roll the wheels, Sanji, it’s not that I think you can’t, I just _also_ know you really don’t want to strain your hands anymore than they already have been,” the cloudy haired engineering major murmurs, his head ducked low so his and Sanji’s foreheads are almost touching.

Blue eyes averted slightly, the chef purses his lips in defiance even as he runs a thumb over the obvious redness of one of his palms. “I know,” he says softly, voice dripping with frustration. “Fine. Thanks, sharpshooter.” A quick glance, gazes catching slightly on each others for a split second, then Usopp’s pulling back and Sanji’s gaze is ahead, a small flush of gratitude decorating his cheeks.)

The main house towers at three stories in the center of the yard and has a porch that wraps around the entire building. There’s a swing by the front door with a small table on either side, one bearing a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Shanks must have been sitting there, waiting for them. The yard surrounding the porch is beautiful in the way Zoro thinks a garden from a fairy tail might be beautiful, with grass that is almost impossibly green and bushes and flowers that are large and vivid like he’s never seen before.

There’s a fountain in one corner of the yard that Usopp stops by, his eyes widening at the swarm of butterflies that are lazily flitting around it. It’s made of stone, with a round base with shards of colored glass embedded into the rock, and a spiderweb of hollowsfilled with water hewn into it. The fountain itself is shaped like a ship with a red dragon-like figurehead and seven large sails. The detail is incredible, each board meticulously carved into the stone as if it were once actually made of wood and had only been petrified by some unnatural creature. The various butterflies and dragonflies fluttering about seemed to make up the crew.

“Usopp,” Sanji says suddenly, his voice strained. Usopp has wandered just a bit too close to a large silvery winged dragonfly resting on one of the outside pools of water on the fountain’s base.

“Oh, oops.” Usopp pulls him a safe distance back, even as he keeps his gaze on the brightly colored insects crawling along the sails. One in particular seems to hold his attention, a large blue-and-pink puffy winged butterfly resting on the Crow’s Nest. “I’ve never seen butterflies like these,” he says, the awe in his voice unmistakable.

“I’ve never seen so _many_ ,” Nami comments from her safe spot behind Zoro. She sounds just as awestruck, but like Sanji, has a deep squick about bugs that refuses to let her get too close.

Shanks hums, peering at the same blue and pink butterfly that had caught Usopp’s attention. He extends his arm carefully and taps the edge of the Crow’s Nest on the opposite side of the butterfly and it alights immediately, flitting off towards the forest. “They like the sight of their own reflections, I think,” he says with a laugh. “There are plenty of species of butterfly that reside here you might not see anywhere else. I’ve got a book inside that documents all the ones I’ve seen, but who knows? There might be even more.” He turns and gives Usopp a warm smile. “Yasopp tells me you like to take photo’s. I’ve got some empty albums in the house, if you’d like to run around and see if you can get them all on film.”

Usopp’s eyes brighten considerably, and he nods so fast that his goggles slip off his head and onto his eyes. “Yes! Yes yes, I’d love to do that!”

Shanks smiles and gestures them all forward. He leads them through the yard – the butterflies and dragonflies are everywhere now that Zoro is really looking, and he wonders briefly what the hell Shanks has growing here that attracts them all – all the way to the back. The yard really is quite large, and Zoro can definitely see himself running back and forth here to work up a good sweat. There’s a large hammock on the backside of the porch, and a bench beside it. They both look well worn. The whole place looks really lived in, actually, a far cry from the manor back home which is kept pristine as a tomb at all times. He likes this place better.

The wobbly balanced redhead leads them to a large barn that takes up a huge chunk of one corner, and really, it’s almost as big as the house itself and has the giant wooden head of a lion (or a sun?) fastened above the large double doors. Standing in front of the doors is – an entirely bewildering man with blue hair, a metal nose, and four prosthetic limbs.

“HEYOOOO,” the man calls out, waving both of his large, fire-engine red arms in the air. They seem to be mostly robotic in nature, with ball bearings instead of shoulder joints, bulky blue forearms, and blocky red hands. The bit of _arm_ still visible through the metal framework is hairy and muscular, implying that even before the bulky enhancements, this was by no means a _small_ man. His legs are just as muscular, and the prosthesis seems to be simultaneously built _into_ him and to _support_ him, with metal plating fastened into his thighs and bendable rods latched around him from knee to ankle. “BOSS BRO! ARE THOSE THE NEW RECRUUUUUITS? THEY LOOK _SUPER_.”

Zoro is honestly at a loss for where to put his eyes. The others, wide-eyed and probably feeling like a group of deer about to be hit by a semi, settle for staring hard at his face. Normally that’d be Zoro’s initial reaction as well, but damn if there isn’t just _so much_ to look at, prosthesis aside, and he takes back what he said about Shanks being the most bewildering person he ever met because here he is, face to crotch with an extremely hairy man wearing nothing but a Hawaiian shirt and a _speedo_.

“This is Franky,” Shanks introduces cheerfully. “He handles most of the heavy lifting and repair work around here.”

Franky flexes at the sound of his name, striking a pose that connects the yellow paint on his forearms to make a star. “ _Suuuuper_ to meet you!” He flexes again. “It’s okay to stare, it doesn’t bother me none! In fact I openly _encourage_ it~!”

“Now now Franky.” Shanks nudges him, his grin seeming to have only grown in the excitable man’s presence. “They’re new, be kind.”

Franky grins, but obediently drops his arms. “I’m being _kind_ ,” he protests playfully. “I’m a work of _art_. College kids _love_ art.”

“Your prosthesis are so wild,” Usopp says in a rush. Holding that in looked like it physically hurt.

Franky laughs boisterously. “I made them myself!” He flexes just for Usopp, who is looking at him like his arms hold the secrets of the universe. “Robotic in nature with a mainly myoelectric connection. Arms, legs, joints, nose, one eye, both nipples--”

“Nipples,” Sanji repeats.

“Franky will be handling everything in the barn,” Shanks cuts in, smoothly shutting down his overexcited companion about to launch into an explanation of what exactly robotic nipples entail. “Milking the cows and handling the equipment inside. I’m actually a bit of a clutterbug, so the inside of the barn is actually erring on the side of dangerous.”

“So much shit,” Franky agrees, nodding matter-of-factly. “Just, so much.”

“Evil metal deathtrap of broken things,” Shanks adds. “Some of them were even things I broke.”

“Not many!”

“Moving on.” Shanks grins. “Franky can handle the barn, and I’m going to go ahead and label it off-limits to you all, for safety.” He turns and gestures towards the back gate. “We’ll be heading this way now.” He starts walking – stops. He turns to Franky and smiles at him. “Franky, would you do me a favor and take over that meeting for me today?”

Franky gives Shanks a sharp salute. “You got it, boss bro!” And off he rockets towards the front yard and, presumably, the front gate.

Nami glances up at Shanks. “Meeting?” she asks.

He shrugs and walks towards the back gate. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Some personal stuff.”

Sanji is staring off into space. “His nipples are robotic?” He sounds haunted.

Shanks stops at the back gate, resting his hand on the latch. “Now,” he says. “The most important rule about the Grand Line that I have is that you are not to leave the yard on your own, ever.” He turns to them. “There are many types of fauna that live on this preserve that require their own space, and if you should happen to stumble into the wrong habitat, you could get hurt. One of the jobs I have you doing is working the field to the north of here, which requires you to leave the yard. Franky will accompany you along your way every day, escorting you to the fields, then returning to escort you back. Do you all understand?”

They all nod, even as four pair of eyes peer into the forest beyond the gate curiously. It seems quiet.

“What kind of fauna do you have?” Nami asks.

“All kinds, from all around the world,” he answers, casting a fond gaze out to the trees. “You most likely won’t meet anything inherently dangerous this close to the house, if that’s what concerns you, but please keep in mind that Grand Line is a refuge. There are things living here that may not have a place to belong anywhere else anymore, and there are things that have lived here their whole lives, never knowing a home other than this. As long as we respect their space, they will undoubtedly respect ours. The rules are in place to safeguard this trust between them and us. It’s better to be accompanied by someone who knows what they’re doing while you’re still learning the ropes, after all.” He smiles broadly at them. “Maybe someday I’ll take you out to explore deeper into the property, but for now, you really should stay close to the house.”

He opens the gate and leads them out onto a small path lined by tall, old fashioned street lamps. Sanji whistles under his breath.

“Oil lamps?” he asks. “That’s pretty old school.”

Shanks grins, waving his fingers at one. “I like old fashioned things. Besides, tech doesn’t always work so well out here. The preserve is pretty big, so it can be hard to get power and such away from the house. The house itself runs on a generator, and we don’t really get great cell service or internet or anything like that outside of the yard.”

“This is like the set up to a horror movie,” Nami whispers.

“Why would you say that to me, specifically,” Usopp frets.

Sanji flexes theatrically, straightening up in his chair so he can puff out his chest. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you both safe!”

“With your broke ass leg,” Zoro deadpans. “Good luck.”

“Do you want to fucking _go_ , mosshead?!”

Ahead of them, Shanks sighs contentedly, a big smile on his face. “The sacrifices this year are so lively.”

“ _What?!”_

The redhead laughs out loud. Zoro likes him more and more by the minute.

The fields are impressively sized and enclosed by a fence much like the yard is. Each row is full to bursting with fruit and vegetable plants of different sizes and shapes, some already producing and some still in their early stages. Towards the back of the main field are three buildings, one large, one medium sized, and one small, in that order. The largest building is a greenhouse, plants of various sizes visible through the glass. The next building seems to be a coop of some kind, and then the last one is just a simple wooden shed.

Shanks holds out his arm in a _behold_ gesture. “Here is where most of our food comes from, and where you’ll be spending most of your time!” he exclaims. “Meat and stuff we pick up from the grocery whenever we need to stock up, but everything else we might as well get here. Your duties include watering the plants--” He points off to the side where a well is resting in a corner. “That’s where the water lives. The greenhouse plants are watered by sprinklers, so you just need to check up on everything to make sure it’s all healthy looking. You’ll be picking any produce you deem ripe enough to be picked, trimming any dead things, collecting the chicken eggs… etcetera etcetera. Normal farming things. The shed over there is where the gardening supplies are.”

While Usopp and Sanji marvel over the trellises full of unripened grapes, Nami’s attention is stolen by a gate tucked away in a corner beside the shed. She points at it. “Where does that go?” she asks.

Shanks follows her finger to the gate and hums sadly. “That leads to the Groundskeepers’ house,” he says. “He took ill early this year and went home to stay with family. You unfortunately won’t be meeting him. It’s a shame – he’s around your age. You might have gotten on.”

“Aw,” Nami says regretfully. “Is he going to be okay?”

The redhead inhales deeply, his expression some distant elsewhere. “I hope so. But!” He turns to them and smiles again, ever warm and kind still. “That’s why we needed the help this year, especially with Yasopp in Mojave. They were the ones who usually worked the fields for us.”

Zoro nods. “Well, you can leave that to us now.”

“Glad to hear it!” Shanks claps Zoro on the shoulder, a friendly motion that nearly sends him reeling – how strong _is_ this guy? – before turning to Sanji. “I have you mostly working in the house because of your leg, but if you ever want to help out here in the mornings, the path along here is wide enough for you and your wheelchair, so you can collect eggs from the coop and work in the greenhouse.”

Sanji smiles up at him gratefully. “Thank you, sir.”

Shanks makes a face. “Shanks, please. Sir makes me sound old.” He waves his hand with a flourish. “Come along, children! The last stop on our tour is the house and then dinner!” He opens the gate and then wanders out onto the path.

“How old does he think we are?” Nami wonders as she follows him.

“How old do we think _he_ is?” Sanji counters, squinting suspiciously at Shanks’ back.

The walk back to the yard promises to be a quiet one. Zoro’s friends taking in the wonder of the nature around them, and normally Zoro would probably be able to find satisfaction in the same. He finds, however, that he can’t quite shake the image of the laughing boy from earlier out of his mind, so he focuses his gaze on Shanks’ back.

“Who else is working here, aside from us?” he asks, loud enough to catch the older man’s attention. “Who usually works here?”

Shanks makes a thoughtful noise and reaches up to rub his chin in contemplation. “Well, aside from the ones you already know about, my friends Ben Beckman and Lucky Roo also work here with me.”

Nami makes a small noise of surprise. “Really? Just the six of you?”

“Mmmhm.” Shanks turns his head a bit to smile at her. “We usually keep pretty busy throughout the day. I do have a friend that stops by every now and then, but that guy is as fickle as the wind – I can never really tell when he’ll blow in.”

“Aside from my dad and your groundskeeper, where is everyone?” Usopp asks, looking back to Shanks from a flower he’d been pointing out to Sanji.

“Lucky decided to go up and join Yasopp in Mojave,” Shanks explains. “And Ben is still here, actually. He’s just off picking up dinner in the town nearby.”

It’d probably make sense for them to have seen Ben if he’d been headed out the same time they came in. Still… “What does Ben look like?” Zoro asks.

“About this much taller than me!” Shanks indicates a hand over his head. “And he’d got silver hair that he usually keeps in a ponytail.”

Damn. The boy he’d seen had short dark hair and was nowhere near Shanks’ height. “There’s no one else?” he asks. “Maybe someone around our age?”

They arrive at the yard and Shanks turns to Zoro, one eyebrow raised. “No,” he says after a long moment, “why do you ask?”

Zoro shrugs a bit sullenly, slipping his hands into his pockets. “No reason.”

Shanks watches him for a moment more, then shrugs lightly. “Come on, then,” he beckons them all into the yard. “Ben should be back with dinner soon.”

The inside of the house is just as warm and inviting as the outside, the lived in feeling in persisting through the atmosphere. The walls of the front room are lined with bookshelves that are crammed full of everything from books to DVD’s to music. There are two couches and a foot rest towards the middle of the room, a small table beside one, and a longer table in front of the other. There’s a slim black laptop sitting on the long table, surrounded by papers and an abandoned coffee cup.

Shanks moves towards the coat rack on the wall behind the door and lifts his shawl.

At first, Zoro doesn’t really – understand what he’s seeing. Not seeing. Up until now he’d just been _expecting_ that under that shawl was another arm. In retrospect, he feels like a moron for not realizing it before – Shanks was an animated man and talked with his hand as much as he talked with his mouth, so of _course_ the empty space Zoro’s mind was having trouble processing made sense. Shoulder, forearm, then nothing. He glances away before Shanks can catch him staring – Nami isn’t as fast.

Shanks turns to them with a laugh, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s alright,” he assures them gently. “Don’t feel weird about staring. You’ll get used to it, most people do rather quickly. And hey, I may not be as good at swordplay as I used to be, but I’m still pretty--” He wiggles his fingers. “Handy.”

Nami snorts before she can stop herself and drops her face into her hands. Sanji looks a bit blown away by the joke, and Usopp just groans.

“Oh, god,” he says. “Dad was right, your jokes _are_ terrible.”

“And you’re stuck with me _all summer_ ,” he says with a cackle. He rubs his shoulder a bit and smiles at them a bit apologetically. “I should have warned you, I apologize. Most days I don’t really think about it – I have a prosthetic around here somewhere that I got when it first happened, but I don’t really wear it often.”

Nami shakes her head hard. “Oh no, don’t feel the need for our sake’s. I was a little startled, but really, it’s fine.”

Shanks glances at the rest of them and they all nod their agreement, so he nods. “Alright!” He gestures down the hall. “Down here is my office, the weight room, the laundry room, and a bathroom,” he says. “The second floor is where most of our rooms are. Mine, Ben’s, Yasopp’s, and Lucky’s. Franky lives in the barn with Madam Sunny – our cow – and you’ll be staying on the third floor. It’s _technically_ the attic, but we only use half of it for storage. The guest rooms make up the other half. Only two, unfortunately – you all can choose who gets what room and how you split them up, I won’t fuss.”

Nami’s hand shoots up. “I call Usopp for a roommate.”

“Nami,” Usopp says, pained. He gestures at Zoro and Sanji who are already eyeing each other in a way that could be considered dangerous.

The tangerine haired girl cringes. “Ugh,” she says. “Fine. Zoro.”

Zoro puffs out his cheeks. Neither of these options are great for him. “Why can’t I have Usopp?”

Nami gives him a pointed look that stabs him harder than his father’s rapier. “I’m not sharing with Sanji.”

Sanji opens his mouth to protest this, and probably to insist he’d be a perfect gentleman – but three gazes drop on him simultaneously and he wisely shuts his mouth. He can’t even bring it in him to be offended – he _did_ doggedly pursue Nami for most of high school. Sure, he never treated her bad or got angry at her for rejecting him, but all things get old eventually. That was all over now and they’d had a long talk about it during their senior year and put most of it behind them, but boundaries are boundaries, even now.

“Zoro and Nami should share,” he agrees evenly. “That just means I get Usopp all to myself.”

Shanks is glancing between the four of them with open interest on his face, but he doesn’t comment on the mini war that just went down. He steps over to the door closest to the front door and grins. “Kitchen’s this way!” He steps inside and the group follows him.

Sanji starts gushing about how gorgeous the kitchen is pretty much the moment they enter, loudly admiring the sleek design of the wooden cabinets and counters. He waves excitedly for Usopp to roll him over to the oven/stove combo that is built into the counter top and the microwave (built into the cabinets) and showers Shanks with compliments over his set up. Shanks somehow manages to look interested – though how Zoro isn’t sure. There is little more boring in this life than listen to Sanji compliment another man’s cutlery. Though he’s beginning to get a feeling that Shanks is just one of those rare rays of supportive positivity in this world that could probably be excited about paint drying if someone else was.

Zoro and Nami take their seats while Sanji babbles to Shanks. Usopp seems reluctant to leave Sanji’s side, so he’s stuck over there as well. Oh well. Zoro turns to peer out the window. It’s wide, like the one in the living room, and has a window seat that’s been converted into a planter for various herbs Zoro presumes must be used for cooking. He’s sure Sanji will shit himself once he sees it.

He takes the moment of peace as a chance to rest. He lets his mind go blank, not wanting to think about anything really. A few minutes pass and he thinks he can hear the others talking about something or another when he sees Franky reenter the yard. He comes through the front gate, and seems to be looks at something over his shoulder at something just out of Zoro’s range of sight. Once he has the gate shut he leans against it and lifts one hand up to his face. He shouts something that Zoro can’t quite make out and steps back. He seems satisfied with whatever he said, so he turns to walk towards the house –

Something comes flying out of the trees and smacks him right in the back of the head. Zoro jumps a bit when he sees Franky stumble, grabbing the back of his head. Zoro gets up and pushes the window open to call out to him.

“Hey, Franky, are you okay?”

Franky seems to startle slightly, turning to look at Zoro with wide eyes. The surprise only lasts a moment, though, and he laughs, bending to pick up whatever had been pitched at him.

“I’m fine, brother!” he calls out. “Just an overzealous monkey. Ben’ll chase it off, I saw him back there.”

Usopp makes a noise of surprise from where he’d been wheeling Sanji over to the table. “You guys have monkey’s here?”

Shanks’ laugh echoes through the kitchen.

(Underneath it, Zoro almost swears he hears that breathy _shishishi_ again.)

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure you actually saw someone?” Nami asks, buttoning up her pajama top. “Maybe you were just, yknow. Seeing things.”

“Yeah, because I often hallucinate boys wearing straw hat’s,” Zoro grumbles. He’s on his bed, facing the wall to give Nami some privacy while she changes. “I don’t see how I could have just been _seeing things_.”

Nami shrugs a little helplessly and plops down on her bed. “I don’t know, Zoro. But you heard Shanks! We’ve met everyone here. No dark haired kid wearing a straw hat.” She shifts. “We’re all pretty tired, yknow? Maybe you saw him at one of the stops we made and your subconscious just sorta brought him up again when you started to relax.”

Zoro rolls over to pin her with a suspicious stare. “And why would that happen?”

Nami stares at him. “You thought he was cute?”

He hopes the look he shoots her is suitably offended.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Nami huffs, flopping onto her back. “You haven’t been on a date ever in your entire life. I’m allowed to heckle you about your imaginary boyfriend. It was what we, as gay best friends, do. All four of us.”

Zoro rolls his eyes. “Don’t lump Sanji into that category.”

“Ehhh...” Nami waves a hand vaguely.

“Don’t say _ehhh._ ”

“ _Ehhhh..._ ”

“Leave Sanji and his sexuality alone, Nami.”

It’s Nami’s turn to shoot him a dirty look. “Hey ho hey _I’m_ not doing anything to his sexuality.” She shifts a bit, pulling her legs up onto the bed and lets her arms flop apart, as if she’s beckoning the ceiling to fall into her arms.

The room is quite for a moment.

“I can’t believe you just implied I was so starved for affection--”

“I didn’t use the words _starved for affection_ \--”

“--that I would create an _imaginary boyfriend--”_

“--I’ve had imaginary girlfriends, Zoro, it’s _nothing to be ashamed of..._ ”

“--out of some random attractive guy I saw at a _gas station_ somewhere--”

“Did I ever tell you about the one time, in middle school, where I had this badass archaeologist turned assassin OC that I thought of like a big sister until I started questioning my sexuality, and then I was just like, _really_ attracted to her–?”

“I’m going to grab my swords and run myself through with all three of them, at once.”

“You’re so _talkative_ when you’re tired, Zoro, I’m enjoying our oversharing. Also, you totally just admitted you found your imaginary boyfriend attractive.”

“GOODNIGHT, NAMI.”

 

* * *

 

A few weeks pass. Working at Grand Line is some of the best fun any of them have had in awhile, and it isn’t long before they’re falling into a routine. They wake up (Sanji and Usopp always wake up first because Usopp needs to help Sanji crutch his way down to the kitchen), Sanji makes breakfast (Ben claims Sanji’s food is the best he’s ever had and Shanks always seems _way_ too excited to eat, so Zoro thinks he agrees), and Franky herds Zoro, Nami, and Usopp to the fields, then comes back around lunchtime to retrieve them.

Ben, for the most part, seems to work in the living room, nursing a coffee and flipping through what seems like an endless amount of paperwork. Upon inquiry, he reveals that he’s actually a history professor. He hosts most of his classes online, though every now and then he travels for an in-person seminar. Franky spends most of his time in the barn, tinkering with things and keeping Madam Sunny (who they still have not been introduced to, much to Nami’s dismay) company, though he is prone to random disappearances. In the afternoons he comes out and hangs out with Usopp and they spend hours talking about a million different engineering things that none of the others can follow.

Shanks – Zoro actually can’t say what Shanks really does. In the mornings he sees him out watering the plants in the yard and setting out small trays of milk by the bushes (“For the butterflies, of course!” Not that Zoro’s ever heard about butterflies drinking milk, but, whatever.), though he’s usually gone by the time they get back. Franky always says that he has a regular meeting he needs to keep, but never goes into more details than that. He’s always back by evening and spends most of it resting or cleaning until dinner. After dinner, he disappears into his office until Zoro and the others head to bed. He’s not actually sure when the man sleeps.

Today was no different. Franky walked them to the fields and bid them luck for the day before departing. It’s been a few hours since then and Zoro’s already finished minding the greenhouse for the day. He’s in a corner of the yard, practicing his breathing while holding his swords as he waits for Nami and Usopp to finish for the day so they can eat their snack and wait for Franky. Usopp was in the coop that day, and Nami was watering the rest of the field – she insisted on doing it by herself, or else Zoro would be helping her with it. As it was, the day was a peaceful one, a normal one in this new normal they’d found here.

Until Nami screams.

Zoro nearly cuts a slice out of the fence when he jumps, eyes flying up and locating Nami. He opened his mouth, ready to snap her head off if she’d screamed over a bug (again!!!) but stops when he sees her posture. She’s standing in the middle of the field, her tools on the ground beside her and her hands flown up to her mouth. She’s staring at something off to the side of the shed.

Zoro follows her gaze to the gate Shanks had told them lead to the old groundskeepers’ house and he feels his blood run cold.

There’s a man standing at the gate. He’s tall, but looks young – somewhere around their age – and has pale, almost colorless stringy hair that doesn’t look like it’s been washed in weeks. He’s staring at them with a vacant gaze, head tilted at a strange angle as if he’d having trouble holding it up, jaw slack and mouth hanging open. His irises are so pale that they might as well not even be there, and any color his skin might have once had is an unnatural chalky white now – even the inside of his mouth, which Zoro has an uncomfortably good view of, is pale and ashen. He’s wearing a pair of old holey gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt that makes him look like a ghost in a living man’s clothes.

“What the fuck?” Zoro blurts out. “Who are you!?”

The man stares at him, the same vacant stare as before. He does move, though, a strange, off-kilter lumber towards the gate. One hand lifts and rests atop it, pushing and jiggling it as if trying to force it open. He doesn’t move his gaze from Zoro’s face.

Usopp comes springing out of the coop, bandanna missing from his hair and eyes wide. “What’s going – aAHHH.” He cuts himself off with a scream when he sees their strange visitor. “What the fuck!!!”

“I don’t _know_ , Usopp!” Zoro snaps. He moves forward, putting himself between the guy and his friends. He doesn’t seem to know how to use the gate, but that doesn’t mean he won’t magically learn in the next few minutes.

The man doesn’t move, even with the addition of Usopp and Zoro’s movements, he just keeps leaning on the fence and jiggling the gate. He definitely wants inside.

Crap. Franky wasn’t going to be back for god knows how long, and god knows how long they even had before the pale man figured out the fence was low enough to vault over. Zoro bites his lip hard, thinking. Behind him, Nami was moving, the shock finally wearing off as she moves closer to Zoro’s back so she could peer over his shoulder at their visitor.

“Usopp,” Zoro says suddenly. “Run back to the house and get Franky.”

“What?!” Usopp blurts out. “What if he comes after me?!”

“He doesn’t – seem very bright,” Zoro says tightly, “and you run the fastest. I’ll try and keep him distracted – this is no time to worry about Shanks’ rules. Just – stick to the path and go as fast as you can to get Franky or Ben or – someone. Nami and I will stay here. Just – hurry. Nami, go lock the gate up behind him.”

Nami nods a bit shakily and grabs Usopp’s arm, pulling him towards the gate before he can protest further. The look on his face tells Zoro that he knows this is the best option – but they both know that doesn’t erase the fear. Zoro gives him a small nod, then moves closer to the pale man.

The same pale man that seems to have caught on to what Usopp and Nami were doing at the other gate and is slowly lumbering his way around the fence to their side. Shit. Zoro speeds up, sheathing his swords carefully and pulling one out of his belt loop. He holds it over the fence and uses it to block the guy’s slow lumber – he seems to be mostly sticking close to the fence, which means he might let the sheathed blade stop him.

He does, and turns his vacant gaze back on Zoro. Up close, it’s even more unsettling – the whole of him is, actually. Zoro can hear the noise of Nami locking the gate, so he knows Usopp must have taken off, but he can’t tear his gaze away from the man in front of him. He can see where his eyes might have once had color, the barest sliver of a pale almost-color in the silvery rings of what remains of his iris. His hair too might have once been something other than the colorless dingy mess it was now. He might have once had a lovely face, had it not been for… whatever this was. It wasn’t a natural pale, there was no natural phenomenon that Zoro knew of that would cause this loss of coloration – it was more extreme than albinism, almost like he was a photo that had all the color run right off of it by chemicals.

He can feel Nami approach from behind and he doesn’t dare move or break the eye contact he’d initiated. The pale man doesn’t seem to have the same urgency, though, because as soon as Nami’s close enough for Zoro to feel the warmth of her nearby him, his gaze moves to hers. A hand lifts and Zoro feels them both flinch back. He raises a hand of his own, ready to block the other if he reaches for Nami.

The hand just hangs there in the air, though, as if resting on an invisible force field around the fields. The man stares at Nami, his hand just resting there, and she swallows and lifts her own hand. She waves.

“Hi,” she says finally. “Can you speak?”

If he can, he doesn’t. He just stares at her.

Nami looks distressed, and Zoro can’t blame her – he’s a little fucking distressed at the moment himself. “Can… you… speak?” she asks again.

He jerks forward and Nami springs into the air like a startled cat. “Drink,” he says. “Drink.”

Zoro doesn’t know why the words send a chill down his spine. Maybe it’s just the raspy way his voice sounds, as if he hasn’t spoken in years.

“Drink?” Nami asks. “You… want a drink?”

The man jerks forward again, gaze locked firmly on her. “ _Drink_ ,” he insists. “Drink… _the milk._ ”

Nami swallows again, trying not to flinch. “The… the milk? What milk? You want… milk?”

Zoro frowns – then he stops. _Milk_. His eyes dart around, finally landing on a small tin by the well. It’s only half full, with the butterflies coming and going from it all day, but half is better than nothing. He wrinkles his nose a bit. He’s not sure how _good_ it’d be.

“Do you mean that milk?” he asks, jerking his head over to the tin by the well.

Nami follows his gaze. “The… the butterfly milk? Zoro, it’s been sitting out all day, it’s probably gross as fuck.”

“Drink,” the man says. “Drink the milk.”

Nami gives him an uncertain look, but hurries over to grab the tin off the ground. When she approaches, the man jerks forward a few more times. She flinches a bit, but shakily holds it out. “This… this is the milk. Here, take it.”

The man quiets, staring down at the tin, then back up at her. His gaze seems even more hollow than before. “You need… to open… your eyes.”

Nami doesn’t get a chance to respond. The gate bursts open and Franky comes sprinting into the field, Usopp right on his heels.

“HEY, WHOA BUDDY,” he shouts. He leaps a line of crops in his haste to get to the other gate which he doesn’t even bother opening. He clears it with a smooth vault and rounds the corner to grab hold of the pale man. The chance in the others posture is instant – he goes limp in Franky’s grasp immediately, his eyes rolling up like he was a doll that had gone sideways. Franky winces and gently scoops the young man into his arms, cradling him against his chest carefully. “What are you doing out of your house, huh? Who let you out? C’mon bro, let’s get you back inside where you’re safe.”

Nami drops the tin on the ground, unable to control the quake in her arms. “Franky, who is that?” she asks, her voice high with stress. “What’s wrong with him? Is he okay?”

Franky looks back at her with a small frown, bundling the now unconscious man against his chest. “I’m sorry he scared you, sister,” he says, his voice softer than usual in response to Nami’s obvious distress. “Shanks is on his way and he’ll explain, alright? I have to get him back to his place before he overheats.”

Nami clasps her hands to her mouth and nods. Zoro puts his sword back in it’s loop and gently takes her shoulders and leads her over to the gate where Usopp is waiting. Usopp throws his arms around her immediately and she buries her face in his shoulder.

Down the path, Zoro can see Shanks approaching, grim look on his face.

“Are you both alright?” he asks once he’s close enough.

Zoro nods, crossing his arms. “He just scared Nami a little. We’ll all be fine. But… what’s going on? Who is that?”

Shanks runs his hand through his hair with a sigh. “That’s… well. Maybe I was wrong for not telling you in case something like this happened, but I really didn’t think it’d come up. That was my groundskeeper – the one I told you was sick. His name is Sabo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damnit Sabo why are you always messed up
> 
> LUFFY ACTUALLY SHOWS UP IN THE NEXT CHAPTER, I PROMISE.


	3. a bad feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the kids make a plan and shanks meets with a friend
> 
> “Well hello to you too, Anchor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry this took so long to post! I was struggling with some writers block and a few motivational issues, but I finally got the chapter looking like how I want it! Luffy appears in this chapter, along with some other familiar faces.

Twist. Focus. Breath out. _Snap_.

Usopp lowers his camera, peering over it at the butterfly he’d just taken a picture of. It, like most of the various insects he’s seen so far around the preserve, is unlike any of it’s kind that he’s seen before. It has voluminous white wings that look pristine at a glance, but begin to shimmer with golden whorls curving along the outer edges whenever the sun hits it just right. It’s his personal favorite, out of the ones he’s seen so far.

He sets his camera on his lap and looks down at the sketchbook laying open beside him on the side deck of the manor. It’s the butterfly guide Shanks’ had given him the first day he got here, and he’d been making good use of it so far. The man was right, there were hundreds of different kinds of butterflies floating around here, and the book had them pretty well documented, if not with photos then with small sketches in varying styles, indicating more than one person had been filling out the book.

The butterfly Usopp had just taken a picture was documented by a sketch. It was simple and only lightly colored with pencils, and signed in delicate cursive as drawn by _Sabo_. Usopp traces the name idly with a finger and sighs. He remembers admiring the sketches drawn by the mysterious Sabo and wondering who they were – an old employee? A relative? He’d meant to ask Shanks’, just to satiate his curiosity, but he never remembered when they were together. He supposes it doesn’t matter now.

Now he had a face to go to the name, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the other since the incident. Shanks’ had taken them back to the manor and explained the situation after Franky had swept the colorless man away.

“ _Sabo, like I mentioned before, has been working here as a groundskeeper since he was young,” Shanks starts, sitting on the far side of one of the couches in the living room. “I won’t go into too many details, but he came into my care after an accident involving his family. He lives in the groundskeepers house that’s down past the field.”_

“ _What… happened to him?” Usopp asks cautiously. Sanji is sitting next to him in his wheelchair, frowning at him in concern. The blonde had nearly jumped out of his skin when Usopp had come charging in earlier, screaming for help._

_Shanks sighs, leaning forward a bit so his elbow is resting on his knee. “Honestly, we’re not sure. He took ill suddenly last summer with what we’ve been told might be some immune system disease. We have a doctor out once a week to see him, but he’s not determined a cause or reason for it as of yet.” He sighs, running his hand through his hair. “We keep him in his cabin so he’s in a familiar environment should he start to recover and Franky goes down to keep him company at mealtimes everyday. He’s not supposed to **leave** the cabin, though. The disease – whatever it is – had completely ruined his immune system. He can barely handle normal temperatures outside anymore. He could have died today, I just… have no idea how he could have gotten out. We’re the only ones here.”_

_Beside him, Nami, who had been previously immobile with her hands clasped on her lap, furrows her brow and looks over at Zoro. Zoro is sitting beside her, tight-lipped and staring at the floor. She stares at him for a few moments, then redirects her gaze to the floor._

“ _I recognize,” she starts quietly. She stops. Shakes her head. “I realize Sabo’s probably none of our business, but why did you keep him being here a secret from us?”_

_Shanks hesitates. “He’s not contagious. I just wanted to respect his privacy as far as his condition was concerned, I don’t think he would like people seeing him like that.”_

_Nami nods, clasping her hands tighter. She looks like she wants to say more, but stays quiet._

“ _I’m sorry you were all given a scare. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of this incident.”_

Usopp sighs and traces the lettering on the top of his camera. It’s his favorite piece of equipment, and usually holding it brings him a sort of… peace. It’s an old Canon AE-1 SLR that he rescued from a bargain bin of broken camera’s when he was thirteen. It was missing screws and had a dent in the rim of the lens that meant the cap would never perfectly sit on it, but it was embossed with golden letting proclaiming it proudly to be the _chosen camera for the olymipic games_ so the young Usopp had become enamored by it and taken it home. Since repairing it, the two had never been far from each other.

He lifts it and takes a few more quick shots of the white and gold butterfly, then depresses a button on the side of the camera to remove the long range lens that had been on it and replace it quickly with a shorter one. As he’s working, the butterfly he’d been photographing lifts from it’s perch on a bush leaf and floats down to a tin of milk that had no doubt been left out by Shanks’ that morning. Usopp stares at it with a thoughtful frown and, lost in his thoughts as he is, doesn’t hear the roll of wheels along the deck.

“Hey, quickshot,” Sanji calls. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”

Usopp jumps, eyes wide and camera being clutched firmly to his chest. “ _Ah!_ Holy shit, Sanji!”

Sanji only laughs, pulling his wheelchair to park on the deck next to Usopp. “What kind of way is that to greet me?”

Usopp can feel his heart beating hard against the cool plastic and metal of his camera, and it’s only half due to the fright he just got. “What kind of way is that to sneak up on me??”

Sanji grins down at him. “You scare too easy.”

He glances down, scowling slightly. “Maybe you’re just too sneaky.”

“I’m literally in the biggest, clunkiest wheelchair I’ve ever seen.”

He sticks his tongue out at the blonde. “ _You’re_ clunky.” Usopp is a mature college-age student who does mature things, all the time.

Sanji laughs again, his eyes shining with amusement, probably at Usopp’s expense. “That’s fucking rude.” He runs a hand through his hair, peering down at his friend’s camera. “Gonna take my picture?”

“Well…” He’s already lifting his camera, twisting the lens to get a good focus on Sanji’s bright smile and ocean blue eyes. The sun filtering in through the slats on the deck twine through the golden strands of his hair and fall over his ridiculous curly eyebrow and – well – one picture wouldn’t hurt. “Only cuz my camera is in love with you.”

As it is, Usopp takes… quite a few pictures of Sanji. Just to make sure he gets at least one good one. Sanji smiles charmingly for each one, and even does a few poses – some silly, some suave – okay, well, most of them are silly. Even the suave ones. Usopp won’t tell him that though. When they’re through goofing off, Sanji smooths out his shirt and rests his elbows on the arms of his chair and leans forward, peering down at Usopp with a thoughtful expression.

“So. What’s eating at you?” he asks.

Usopp startles, looking up at Sanji much like a deer in headlights. “What?”

“You’re out here brooding over your camera, and your handsome concentration face was all scrunched up with worry lines. Right here --” He pokes at the corner of one of Usopp’s eyes and the other flinches away instinctively. “What’s up? Is it about yesterday?”

“I – I’m not --” He feels an embarrassed fluster rising to his cheeks, a bit ashamed at how well Sanji can read him. “Yeah. Yeah, sort of.”

Sanji frowns a bit, concern trickling into his expression. “Nami said it was pretty scary.”

“Well, yeah, but…,” Usopp sighs, setting his camera down on the book beside him and pulling his legs up to his chest. He rests his chin on them so he doesn’t have to look at Sanji. “I… feel bad.”

“Feel bad?”

“For being so freaked out! God, you heard me yesterday, I --” Usopp groans, hands slipping up to tug at his hair in frustration. “I acted like I’d seen a monster. I mean, yeah, I can be pretty over dramatic sometimes, but – Sabo’s just – a sick… person. He’s sick and I don’t know how much he can really comprehend of his situation, but he must have been scared too! Nami and I talked a little about how hard he was trying to communicate with her, even if what he did manage to communicate made no sense. But I just… ugh.”

Sanji reaches over to pat Usopp’s shoulder. “Hey, hey now. Don’t go beating yourself up over that? I’m sure anyone would have been scared in that situation.”

“My first thought was _oh shit, it’s a zombie!_ ” Usopp confesses, his tone a touch on the bitter side. “I’m just… ashamed of myself. If it had been just me down at the fields, I would have run away and not looked back, and then who knows what might have happened? And all because he looks a little – different.”

“Creepy.”

“ _Sanji!”_

“Hey, hey,” Sanji says again. “Yeah, maybe you reacted a little strongly, dude, but it’s no use thinking of things like _what if_. You weren’t the only one there. And, yknow, all three of you just saw this strange looking guy come out of the woods and shake a gate at you, I’m sure anyone would have been scared. Yeah, Sabo is sick and can’t control what he looks like, but you probably would have been scared by even someone who looked like something you were used to seeing. Just because the way he looked made him suddenly appearing a bit worse for you in the moment of panic doesn’t make you an asshole. And look! You even feel bad about it! Further proof that you aren’t an asshole. We’re just on a roll now, huh?”

Usopp feels his cheeks warm a bit, and he glances at Sanji just out of the corner of his eye. Not quite turning to look, but no longer hiding as hard either. “Thanks, Sanji,” he says softly.

When Sanji smiles it’s warm, and his eyes crinkle a little at the corners and Usopp’s pathetic heart does a backflip. He looks away again because sometimes it’s too much to meet his friend’s gaze when he smiles like that. Sanji laughs softly and reaches out to dance his fingertips along Usopp’s back, tracing along his spine, up and down in gentle, soothing motions.

“Come inside,” he says. “I was making something to cheer Nami up, but I _suppose_ I could spare a little batter for a certain sharpshooter. How’s about it? Cake, cookies, tarts–?”

“Oh my.” Usopp grins up at Sanji, finally turning to face him fully. His back feels warm and there’s still a bit of guilt knocking around in his chest, but you don’t turn down a handsome chef who’s offering you sweet things. He gets to his feet and Sanji backs the wheelchair up so he can follow him back to the house.

Before they round the corner, though, Usopp turns to glance back at the bush where the milk was. “Hey… Sanji?”

Sanji glances up at him. “Hm?”

“Where does Shanks’ get the milk for the butterflies?”

Sanji casts a curious glance over at the tin Usopp is looking at and shrugs. “I dunno,” he says honestly. “We use store bought milk in the house. Which is weird, since he _says_ we have a cow somewhere. Why?”

Usopp hums thoughtfully, then shrugs a bit reluctantly. “No reason. C’mon, I want some sugar--” He gently bats Sanji’s hands away from the wheels and begins to push him towards the door.

Sanji rolls his eyes, grinning as he lets Usopp push him. “Alright, alright. I’ll give you some sugar.”

(Usopp tries not to be too pleased by the wording.)

 

* * *

 

It’s been a long morning for Nami.

The tangerine haired girl finds herself sitting on the windowsill in her and Zoro’s room, gazing out the window glumly. Yesterday had been stressful for her, and Shanks’ had told her that she could sit today in the field out and while she was grateful for the break, she also couldn’t quite meet Shanks’ gaze that morning. She knew he didn’t blame her, he seemed like too much of a kind person to do that, but that doesn’t change how she felt about how deeply Sabo’s sudden appearance had unsettled her.

And really, she doesn’t blame Shanks’ for not telling them. Everyone had secrets, and everyone had a good reason for keeping them. Sabo’s privacy deserved to respected, and she wasn’t entitled to him in any way. A part of her was concerned, of course – was it something on the preservation that caused his sickness? Could the same thing happen to her? It seems inconceivable that Shanks’ would keep a danger like _that_ away from them.

A movement towards the bottom of the window catches her eye and she glances down. There’s a butterfly resting on the flower box just outside her window, and it had shuffled close enough that it almost seemed like it had come over to peer up at her. She lowers a hand to press a fingertip idly against the glass, comfortable enough to do that without fear she might actually touch it – and really, it’s such a gorgeous butterfly that she can almost forget that it’s a bug.

Actually – she tilts her head to the side as one of it’s gorgeous wings lowers delicately to rest against the windowpane where her fingertip is resting. It looks familiar – puffy blue wings with pink accents in swirls along it’s edges. It looks like the one Shanks’ shooed away from the ship fountain in the front yard their first day here. She feels a giddy little surge of happiness. It had come back to see her!

“I’m holding hands with the prettiest butterfly,” she coos. “Usopp would be so jealous.” She considers calling the other upstairs to take a picture, but decides against it. The loud noise might scare her new friend away.

She feels a bit calmer, now, at least. She thinks about the placement of Sabo’s house – outside the fenced areas – and Shanks’ rules. Obviously they’re in place to prevent thinks like that again, if it really did happen here. And who knows, it might not have even happened here. She sure has never heard of a pigment losing disease caused by an _animal_. Maybe a plant or a fish? Nami feels pretty confident in her ability to look and not touch.

Zoro, on the other hand…

She snorts at her own joke, smiling down peacefully at the butterfly. “Thank you, little friend...” she murmurs. She pauses, then glances over her shoulder – Zoro’s still not back from his shower. She peers out at the yard, then hunches over so she’s a bit closer to the butterfly. “Hey, little friend. Do _you_ know what’s so special about your milk? Is it super important? Will it make me sick if I drink it--?”

The butterfly flutters it’s free wing up at her. Nami pouts.

“That’s not helpful.”

The butterfly draws the wing against the windowpane away and crawls over to the edge and flies off. Nami gasps, pressing against the window with a dismayed noise. “Hey no, come back… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude--!”

“Since when?”

Nami jumps at Zoro’s sudden voice, whipping around to _squint_ at him. He’s standing in the doorway wearing a pair of black jeans and a towel over his hair, eyeing her with a bit of a crook to his lips she’s come to understand as amusement at her expense. She flips him off. “Hey, where’s your common decency? Didn’t your sister ever teach you to knock? Or enter a room with a shirt, at least?”

He raises an eyebrow slowly, his gaze falling to her body. She follows it down to her blue, denim-patterned boyshort panties and white bikini top. She looks up at him with a narrow-eyed squint and a scowl.

“Are you _looking_ at my _panties_?”

Zoro visibly cringes. “Don’t – say _panties._ And no, I’m not.”

“They’re _panties_ , Zoro, so I’m gonna call them _panties_ , and you’re looking _right at_ my _panties_ so the least you could do is accept the big, cotton _panty elephant_ in the room--” She jabs a finger in his direction. “--along with accepting _responsibility._ Five dollars for every second you looked!”

Zoro throws his arms up and turns away, making sure she saw the very theatrical rolling of his eyes. “I was _looking_ to make a _point_ but I wasn’t _looking_.”

Nami rolls her eyes and walks over to their dresser to pull out a pair of denim shorts and a green tanktop with the word _GOLD_ printed across the chest. Zoro stands with his back to her while she dresses in silence for a moment.

He sighs a bit, as she’s pulling on her shorts, and she glances up at him. “You’re not still worried about yesterday, right?”

Nami echoes his sigh and finishes buttoning her shorts. “Kinda. Are you still thinking about that boy you think you saw?”

She’s not teasing him this time. Yesterday, when Shanks’ expressed confusion over how Sabo got out of his cabin, she and Zoro had shared a look. They hadn’t told Shanks’ about it, not yet, because Nami isn’t fully convinced Zoro actually saw someone and Zoro is steadily becoming more sure but not sure enough to set off a manhunt through a huge preservation. He crosses his arms and gives a sharp shrug.

“Not really,” he lies. He thinks he knows what his sister means when she says she sometimes feel haunted by the smiles of people she’s known in the past. He feels haunted by that boy’s smile, and he might not even be real – and if he is, he might be guilty of reckless endangerment, probably.

Nami pulls on her shirt and lays back on her bed. Zoro hears the springs creak as she lays down and takes it as permission to turn around so he can rummage around in the drawers for a shirt of his own.

Nami watches him, frowning a bit. She’s worried. Zoro isn’t the type to linger on things like that. Zoro turns his head slightly and catches her gaze. He sticks his tongue out at her and she gasps, offended.

“Rude!” she exclaims.

He smirks, just a bit, then pulls out a blue tank top and pulls it on. He also grabs a pair of boots from beside the dresser and pulls them on.

She frowns. “Going back out?”

Zoro wraps his bandanna around his forearm, as he usually does, and looks down at her. “Yeah,” he says, and his tone sets her on edge. That’s a Bad Tone. That’s a We’re-About-To-Get-In-A-Lot-Of-Trouble Tone. “We are.”

“We?” she asks nervously.

Zoro tosses her her own boots. “We. You, me, Usopp, and the shit cook.”

Nami catches them and begins pulling them on even as the dread and resignation begin to fill her. “Where? To – the field?”

“Nope,” he says, walking out the door. “Outside the fence. We’re going exploring.”

Shit. “Zoro, wait – think this through!” she calls after him, making to follow – stops. She returns to the windowsill to grab the backpack she left just under it. She bends to pick it up and just happens to glance out at the flower box as she’s pulling back up.

She drops her bag. The butterfly is back, fluttering away on the little ledge, and beside it on the edge of the ceramic box is a small droplet of white.

 

* * *

 

Today, Shanks’ starts his morning like any other morning.

He wakes up at his desk, papers sticking to his face and drool drying on his chin. He smacks his lips a few times, trying to shake the morning taste from his mouth, and gets to his feet so he can toddle sleepily over to his closet to grab his cape.

From there, breakfast. Sanji’s food is enough to make a man cry, but he manages to hold it in another day. If everything works out with the new kids this summer and they pass all their tests, he _might_ have to retain their services for the future. _Might_ as in _definitely_.

After that he goes upstairs to take a quick shower and get dressed – as he comes out of his personal bathroom he startles at the sight of an arm sticking out from under his bed. He inches closer and kicks it – sighs in relief. Just his prosthetic. He’s really going to have to have a chat with his _midnight visitors_ about leaving that thing lying around. He’s gonna have a heart attack one of these days. (He kicks it further under the bed because really, he’s got no time for that thing.)

Downstairs and out the front door he goes. Outside, he takes a deep breath – the air out here is crisp and clean and buzzing with an undercurrent of adventure. It’s intoxicating – it was when he came here as a teen to work for the previous owner, Roger, and it stays that way even now. He opens his eyes and grins up at the sky. Another great day.

He steps off the porch and crosses the yard to the barn to retrieve the milk for the bush tins from Ms. Sunny and the water for the flowers. When he lost his arm, Franky had engineered him a little two-sided watering can for his morning duties – one side was a normal watering can with a rose to break up the water, and the other side was a watering can with no rose full of milk to pour into the tins. Shanks’ was deeply fond of it, even if all the liquid made it a little weighty – he’d been a swordsman for years. He could handle it.

As he watered by the fence, he caught sight of a pair of blue-and-pink wings. Aha. Seems like the young princess is back to grace his yard. He passes the section of the fence she’s sitting on and raises his eyebrow at her.

“Milady,” he greets.

“Caretaker,” she responds absently. She’s small, even for a faerie, with brown skin, a length of billowing blue hair that reaches past her feet, and a delicate pink dress made of the dyed gossamer from many of the more spider-like fae. Her impossibly brown eyes are locked on a second story window – Nami and Zoro’s, if Shanks’ remembers correctly.

He waves his hand in front of her face and she startles. “She can’t see or hear you, you know,” he reminds her gently.

The fae girl sighs, and the sound reminds Shanks’ of a tiny gust of wind. “I know.”

He smiles at her a little sympathetically. “Want to come visit the brothers with me?”

She looks up at him, then nods a little. “Maybe for a little while,” she says. She glances around – probably looking for her advisers – then flits up to rest on Shanks’ shoulder. She curls her little fingers into the material of his cape and nods to him.

Shanks’ smiles at her, then sets about finishing his chores for the morning. As they leave the yard, Shanks’ notices another young fae girl on his fence. Vivi waves at her.

“Hi Kaya!” she calls.

The white-and-gold winged fae looks up at the two of them and waves back. Her dress is white gossamer and her hair is short, choppy, and pale yellow. Her peachy skin is beginning to redden at the shoulders, and she holds out her hands for Vivi. “Princess, can you help me? My shoulders are burning and I don’t know why.”

Vivi casts a longing glance out to the woods. She _had_ wanted to see the brothers, but… she pats Shanks’ cheek gently. “Maybe tomorrow, Caretaker. Say hi for me, though.”

Shanks’ smiles at her and holds up a finger for her to grab onto so he can lower her to the fence to rest beside Kaya. “Will do, Milady. I hope your shoulders feel better soon, Miss Kaya!”

Kaya smiles up at him bashfully, her cheeks lighting up vibrantly. “Have a good visit, Caretaker! Thank you.”

“You’ll burn even more this way!” Vivi scolds, patting her cheeks. “Your problem is that you get too flustered over everything--”

Shanks’ laughs and leaves the two fae to their devices. He sets down his empty watering can by the gate for Franky, then slips out into the forest.

There’s a small dirt path that leads out from the gate, pretty well defined and marked every now and then with little lamp posts. The path leads up to a fork – one way is towards the lake, and the other is deeper into the preservation. Shanks’ takes that path, smiling as it grows less and less defined the deeper he goes. There may not be a path here, but he’s been down this way so many times that he could make the trek in his sleep.

_Shishishi…_

Shanks’ smile widens to a full blown grin. He heard that, like he hears the rustle of leaves in the trees where his little stalker is following him. He hums, feigning ignorance as he stretches, his eyes rolling to the side so he can catch the whisper of red scales through the leaves as a certain mischievous brat jumps from branch to branch in hot pursuit of his prey.

The red haired man stops in the middle of his trail and hums, looking around. “Where was that camp, again? Was it here? There? Oh dear, I’m lost.” He sighs loudly and turns on his heel. “Oh well, I’ll just head back home then.”

He’s only made it a few paces when a shrill cry rips through the air and his stalker launches himself out of the nearest tree at his back. _Aha._ Shanks spins around and grins, catching the little monster full in the chest. He’s promptly thrown off his feet by the force of it, flying onto his back with a gleeful _‘oof!’_.

“Well hello to you too, Anchor,” he wheezes, just – laying there, on his back, for a moment. “God you’ve gotten so big.”

“ _Shishishi._ ” His young friend’s laugh is like a whistle of particularly mischievous wind, more air than sound. “You say that every time you see me!! I’m not bigger today than I was yesterday!!”

Shanks’ snickers and sits up, dropping the squirming kid onto his knees. “I dunno, Luffy,” he says, putting one hand on his head. “I think you might have grown a whole quarter of an inch. I have a sense about these things.

He tries to hide it, but Shanks’ can see the sparkle of glee in his young friend’s eyes. Luffy is – well, there is little precedence for what Luffy is. A true rarity.

To the untrained eye, he’s a brown-eyed, willowy young man with warm tawny skin and a wild head of black hair which has only seemed to grow more and more wild with each passing year since the one they met. There’s a scar just under his left eye, curved like a smile and pretty shoddily stitched, a remnant of childish folly that Shanks takes partial responsibility for, and he wears a well-loved straw hat with a red ribbon that has passed many hands, Shanks’ own included. His skin is a map of adventures, full of scrapes and little bruises from his various goings on, and his smile is bright enough to light up a starless night.

Shanks can see more, though, as a Caretaker of the Grand Line. He can see things such as the trail of red scales along Luffy’s nose that travel upwards and fan out to cover the top half of his face like a fancy mask. He can also see the way his eyes, still brown, lack the normal human scelra one might expect to see in an eye, and the way the shimmery brown glitters in many different shades around a wide, fish-like pupil. The way his hair trails onto the back of his neck like a mane, his mouth full of razor sharp teeth, and the whisper of fins hidden just beneath his shaggy hair.

The fins in scrutiny perk up a bit when Luffy feels Shanks looking at them and the Caretaker can’t help but admire them for their form and functionality. Luffy’s ears are long, scaled at the edges, and tapered like a nymphs and his fins are longer still, fanning out delicately from his ear and structured much like a bat’s wing. Each thin, maneuverable vertebrae is tipped with little scaled bubbles that retain moisture, and his entire ear, fin and all, is able to be collapsed and hidden under his hair or extended to increase his hearing range.

Shanks hums and holds out his hand for Luffy and the boy scrambles to get off of his legs and stand, grabbing onto his mentor’s hand to help him to his feet. Luffy’s hands are scaled in a patchwork as well, fingers ended in wicked looking claws and the scales trailing back from each finger to coat the back of his hand and arms. The vibrant vermilion scales are mostly defensive in nature and as such coat his back in it’s entirely, down to the backs of his thighs and coating his legs completely from the knee down. His vulnerable points where his skin (still tawny but also spotted lighter and darker in places and much, much softer than human skin) is uncovered by scales are from his jaw down to the tops of his knees, places easily defensible using his forearms and legs.

He’s the only one of his kind that Shanks is aware of to ever choose to live on a preservation like the Grand Line, and potentially the only one still alive today.

A dragon selkie.

(A long time ago, when Shanks still had two arms and wore a straw hat. “What’s a _dragon selkie?_ ”

A long time ago, when Luffy was small enough to fit snugly in Shanks’ arms and his face hadn’t yet been marked. “You know...” Little arms fold in front of him to pantomime flippers. “like Nessie!”

“Like _whom??”_ )

Shanks grips Luffy’s clawed hand tightly and smiles down at him. “Will you lead this poor, lost old man to the camp?”

Luffy grins back up at him brightly and begins tugging him along. “Mhm!!!”

Shanks hums and falls in next to his excitable charge and nods towards his hat. “Nice hiding place, by the way.”

Luffy giggles and reaches up to stroke along the ribbon on his hat. Shanks _almost_ missed it earlier, but the red of Luffy’s pelt is just a bit brighter than the normal red of the ribbon on that old hat. “Dumb Ace still hasn’t sniffed out where I’ve hidden it this time!”

“Ace is trying to filch your pelt from you, huh?” Shanks squints playfully at him. “You must have done something bad to warrant him trying to ground you. What have you gotten up to?”

Luffy averts his eyes, pursing his lips as if he were trying to whistle innocently. (He can’t actually whistle, he’s very bad at it.) “Nothing! Maybe Ace is just being a butt.”

“Luffy...” Shanks can hear the familiar sounds of revelry filtering through the leaves, so he knows they’re getting close to camp.

“Nothin!!” He insists, his eyes skimming the area. Where Luffy is, his brother undoubtedly close by. The two were rarely far from each other in their youth, and since the incident last summer they were even less so. “I’m bein _good_.”

“You’re bein _good_ huh--?”

Luffy’s gaze snaps to the side and Shanks’ own follows his to a large tree by the entrance to the camp. Wound around trunk of the tree is a beautiful orange scaled beast, about twice the length of Shanks. His form is reminiscent of the Western depictions of dragons, with a long, sweeping tail and leathery bat-like wings. His talons are dug into the side of the tree and his great lizardy head is squinting down at Shanks and Luffy from where he has it resting on a tree branch.

“I’ll never understand how you can rest comfortably like that, Ace,” Shanks remarks, waving at the young dragon.

“Pffbt.” Ace scoffs and begins unwinding his long neck from the trunk of the tree. “It’s nothing! The bark doesn’t hurt my scales and – ack.” His long corkscrew horns have gotten tangled in the tree branches and now Luffy is cackling.

“Awwww, dumb Ace got stuck again--”

Ace growls angrily and swings his great body around – Shanks and Luffy both have to duck to avoid getting sideswept by his tail – the whole of him catching fire as he does. When the flames have subsided, he’s back in his bipedal form… and his horns are _still_ tangled in the tree branches. He hooks his legs over a nearby branch and groans, trying in vain to untangle the vines from his horns. Luffy laughs harder.

“Stop _laughing_ you br a t--” Ace hisses, clawing at the vines desperately. “When I get down there, I’m gonna kick your ass, just wait--”

Ace, as utterly graceful as he so obviously is, is still only a child by dragon standards, like his brother. Unlike his brother, he’s only a dragon. Though dragons and dragon selkies, like all dragons, are related somewhere under the genealogy tree, the two are from completely different regional families. Ace’s kind is considered by some researchers to be a purer form of dragon while Luffy’s type seems to be more closely related to the selkies of Scotland.

Still, in their bipedal forms, they don’t look much different from each other. Ace’s hair is just as wild and shaggy as his brother’s, the mane trailing down his neck to the small of his back. His whole body is covered in orange scales, not just his back, and a ridged piece of skin runs from his outside wrist along his arm, a remnant of his wings, and hard enough to cut. His tapered ears are more cartilage than membrane and have no fins. His eyes, a deep brownish orange, are more reptilian in nature (and currently slitted in anger) and his teeth are bigger, the front line in particular being longer and more dangerous looking than Luffy’s.

Finally his claws manage to cut the vines from his horns and he drops down onto his feet hard and Luffy scrambles to hide behind Shanks. Ace, less fond of clothes than his brother and as such only wearing a pair of black cargo shorts, straightens to his full height, just a head under Shanks, and glares down at his brother. He pulls the brown leather cowboy hat from the string around his neck and carefully lowers it onto his head. His spirally horns protrude from it proudly.

“You won’t be hidin’ behind him when I tell him what a little shit you’ve been,” Ace shoots at the young dragon selkie. “He’s been followin your mini Caretakers around, Shanks.”

Shanks tsks lightly at Luffy. “Ah. That explains some things.” He turns, prodding the hiding boy’s forehead with his forefinger. “One of them must have seen you when they first arrived. He mentioned wondering if I had any impish looking employees around his age--”

Luffy’s eyes brighten considerably. “Was it the green one? I love them all, but he’s my favorite. Have you seen him do swords?? He does them at the field, and he’s _so good_. He uses _three!!_ ”

Shanks laughs, ruffling Luffy’s hair. “Yes, I’ve seen him and his three swords.” A pause. “Luffy, you know you’re not supposed to be near the fields. The young Caretakers haven’t passed their tests, yet.”

Luffy scowls. “Well, they should hurry, you know?”

Ace huffs, then walks over to seize his brother by the shoulders and drag him into a noogie. Luffy squeals and struggles to get away, but Ace is too strong (and he might not actually be trying that hard anyway, judging by the giggles coming through the yelling). “You gotta _wait_ , brat. Don’t go getting attached to people who might not even stick around.”

“They’re _gonna_ ,” Luffy insists. “I can tell!! They’re good ones.”

Ace scoffs, but ceases his noogie attack and instead grabs Luffy’s face with both hands so he can lean down and blow a raspberry on his forehead. Luffy giggles loudly and winds his arms around Ace’s waist.

Shanks watches them with a small smile, then reaches over to pat Ace’s shoulder. “Hey, let’s go in. I have to talk to the Old Man about something.”

Ace glances up at him curiously. “Something wrong?”

He hesitates. “Maybe,” he says. “You two still spend every night over at Sabo’s cabin, don’t you?”

Ace grimaces slightly, and Shanks’ heart aches for him. The older brother in a lot of ways took Sabo’s condition the hardest. “Yeah,” he grunts. “We always do. Why?”

“You did lock the door when you left yesterday morning, didn’t you?”

Ace’s grimace turns to an expression of offense. “Of course we did! Why would you ask that?”

Luffy frowns up at Shanks, his brow creased a little in worry. “Is something wrong with Sabo?”

Shanks holds up a hand in a placating gesture. “I don’t want to alarm you, but our new caretakers found him wandering by the fields on his own last night.”

Ace’s face melts from one of anger to one of shock – and then fear. “What?! He got out of his house?? How – I – I’m _sure_ I locked the door. How would he have gotten out? Lu…?”

Luffy shakes his head hard. “I watched you lock it! Remember, ‘cuz I couldn’t do it on accounts of I’d left my key back at our nest.”

Shanks frowns. “I believe you both. He’s fine, of course – gave our caretakers a bit of a fright, but Franky managed to corral him and take him back before he suffered any damage. You two saw him last night, did he seem alright?”

Luffy shrugs a bit, his fins drooping a bit at the somber subject. “He seemed like he always does. Quiet and sleepy.”

“Yeah, there wasn’t a change,” Ace agrees, crossing his arms. He still looks upset, and Shanks imagines that he’ll be heading off to Sabo’s cabin the moment he leaves.

He gestures towards the camp. “We’ll figure something out. Let’s go inside for awhile, mm? Vivi asked a couple of her fae to watch the cabin, so he’ll be alright for now.”

The brothers nod, then lead the way into the Whitebeard Camp.

The whole of the Grand Line, as Shanks was told when he first passed his own test, is a wild and untamed wilderness that serves as the perfect home for creatures of a magical nature. As a Caretaker, he serves as a bridge and a gatekeeper – magical creatures of all sorts come from all over the world and from all sorts of backgrounds to make homes in preservations such as these. Rare creatures who are at risk of extinction, like Luffy, young creatures who need a safe place to grow and learn, like Ace, and old souls who are looking for a place to rest after a long life, like Edward Newgate – or, as he likes to be called, Whitebeard.

It takes a big man to have any luck taming any part of the Grand Line, and Whitebeard stands as a behemoth over his kingdom. The “campsite” as Shanks calls it is a sprawling field where many a revelry has taken place, marked at it’s peak by a large throne made of stone and furnished with thick pelts of the finest wool. Upon it sat the half-giant himself, a man large of size and large of heart. His family is a vast hodge podge of different creatures, most of whom are currently sprawled across the various tables and chairs around the clearing or poking at fire pits.

Shanks approaches the man with his larger than like muscles and impressive mustache. “Hello, Old Man,” he greets.

“HI PAPA!” Luffy shrieks, launching himself past Shanks and onto the half-giant’s lap.

“Luffy, let the old man live!”

“Ya gonna break him one day, kiddo!”

“TAKE IT LIKE A MAN, POPS.”

Whitebeard’s rumbling laugh echoes through the field as he drops a massive hand on Luffy’s back, patting the excitable child eagerly. He looks down at him and grins. “Hello, my boy.” He looks over at Shanks and harrumphs a little. “Caretaker. The day finds you well?”

“Well enough,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “We have some things to discuss, Emperor.”

He lifts his free hand, waving him off. “As Caretaker you’re much an Emperor in your own right. Address me however you like, you wellspring of impudence.”

Shanks laughs. “Well, alright. It came to my attention yesterday that somehow, Sabo got out of his cabin. He startled a couple of our young Caretakers, but Franky managed to get him home before he sustained any damage. The problem is, we don’t know how he got out.”

Whitebeard arches an eyebrow, then looks over at Ace. “Ace?”

Ace shakes his head. “Lu and I locked up when we left. We’re pretty sure.”

“You, Luffy, and the Caretaker are the only ones with keys,” the half-giant rumbles.

Luffy squirms around on his lap, then sits up so he can reach for and tug on Whitebeard’s impressive mustache. “I left my key in mine and Ace’s nest!” he announces. “It should still be there.”

The Emperor frowns, then waves to a young man nearby. “Thatch, go check on the nest for me, please.”

Thatch, a tall man with dark red hair styled into a pompadour and deep golden eyes, looks up from his spot sprawled on the ground by a fire pit. “You got it, Pops,” he calls, pushing himself up onto all fours. He hums loudly, and then, before their eyes, shrinks into a rabbit and jets off.

“Phooka are so useful,” Shanks comments.

“Don’t let Thatch hear you say that,” Ace comments as he wanders over to the fire pit Thatch had been laying next to. “He’ll get a big head, right Marco?”

The flames in the firepit dance a little higher, and a blue head of feathers sticks out from the flames lazily. “Yeah,” he says. “Though he’s already got one of those.” The head pulls back into the flames, and after a moment, a different head emerges, one decidedly more human-like. Marco climbs out of the fire, his blonde hair in a pineapple-like tuft in the center of his head, and blue eyes bright with fire.

Ace takes a playful swipe at him which Marco easily blocks. “Hey Marco,” he says.

“Hey.” The man stretches, adjusting his shirt. “Shanks. Do you think Sabo is in any danger?”

Shanks hums and pushes his hand into his pocket. “I’m not sure. I was hoping I could request your assistance in keeping a better eye on him. We’ve been a little stretched thin at the manor, what with minding the new Caretakers and all.”

Marco nods. “Anything for Ace and Luffy’s brother. Thatch and I will take turns watching the cabin when the boys aren’t there.”

Ace grins at him a little. “My hero,” he says. Marco rolls his eyes.

A rapid thumping fills the air as Thatch hops back into the clearing. His transformation back into the golden eyed man is seamless, but the lazy grin from earlier is gone. “I didn’t find a key,” he says.

Luffy looks over at him and frowns. “I definitely left it there.”

“It’s not there, Lu,” Thatch says. “I woulda seen it.”

Whitebeard makes a low, rumbling noise. “We’ll send some men out to look for the key. In the meantime, I think the suggestion Marco gave is a fine one.” He waves a hand and several more creatures pick themselves up from their various positions and head out, presumably to start the search for Luffy’s key.

The boy in question looks troubled, so Marco ambles over and holds out his arms. “C’mere little Lu. Let’s go look together.”

Luffy pouts a little, then waves at Shanks. “We can play later, okay Shanks? I gotta find my key.”

Shanks nods. “Good luck, Luffy.”

The dragon selkie jumps into Marco’s open arms and allows himself to be carted away. Ace, meanwhile, turns to Thatch.

“Hey bunny man, let’s head over to the cabin. I want to check on Sabo,” he says.

Thatch dips into a showy bow. “This bunny man shall take your hand--”

Ace groans. “Stoooop.”

Thatch laughs and shifts back into a rabbit. “Race ya!”

The two run off. Shanks and Whitebeard watch them go.

“It could be nothing, you know,” Shanks says.

“You don’t believe that,” Whitebeard grunts. “And this close to the Midsummer’s Night, trouble has less of a chance being nothing.”

“Mm.” Shanks runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one, Old Man.”

“You and I have seen plenty, Red Hair. We’ll see plenty more before time is up.”

Shanks laughs. “You know, that was _almost_ comforting. You’re getting soft in your old age, you great mountain.”

Whitebeard’s laugh shakes the ground around them, and Shanks is about to sit down and offer his old friend a drink when Vivi flies into the clearing and nearly smacks him in the face.

“Oh Emperor, I apologize for encroaching on your territory but I must speak with the Caretaker,” she says breathlessly. “Tis an emergency!”

Whitebeard waves her off. “Speak, child.”

“It’s the young caretakers!” she exclaims, wringing her hands. “They went off into the forest by themselves, and I’m afraid they’ve found the lake. I – I think they want to take a swim.”

The Emperor arches an eyebrow. “The naiad lake?”

“The very same.”

Shanks groans. “Oh, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loofiedee drew an amazing art of Luffy talking to Shanks about his favorite new swordsman!! Find it [here](https://loofiedee.tumblr.com/post/167505807936/was-it-the-green-one-i-love-them-all-but-hes) <3 
> 
> Honestly, who doesn't love the Whitebeard's adopting Luffy? No one, that's who
> 
> Also, on the subject of Sanji.
> 
> Sanji was, when I started watching One Piece, one of my absolute favorite characters. Yeah, he was a little bit of an over the top flirt, but that's a pretty common trope in anime, and he had so many other wonderful characteristics that made him a genuinely likable character for me -- which was pretty much ruined in the Timeskip/Fishman Island arc. 
> 
> I won't go off on a tangent here, but obviously depicting Sanji as transphobic/homophobic is something that would make me intensely uncomfortable as a genderfluid/pansexual person. I don't want to completely ignore that facet of his personality and just say "oh, well, MY Sanji was never like that" though, so I want to put in a sort of "Word of the Author" way that Sanji (having met Nami, Usopp, and Zoro in high school) went through a period where his friendships with the others were strained due to his bigotry and his constant flirting with Nami and he had to rethink the views he'd grown up with and teach himself to overcome those sorts of prejudices. The friends became much closer after that and he's grown more comfortable acknowledging and accepting people for their differences (and maybe exploring a few differences himself.)
> 
> Also, on a lighter note, Thatch is a phooka bc phooka are cute


	4. a scenic walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The caretakers take a walk in the park, and Marco and Luffy look for a key. An intense conversation about peacocks is had, and Ace gets an ominous warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stares off into the distance. Hopefully every tuesday or wednesday...
> 
> I could explain why this took so long, but it all amounts to writers block and a mountain of excuses. Know that I'm sorry! And I'm so glad for everyone who likes this thing I'm writing. I love it a lot and sharing it with you all is super great, and I promise I'll try not to leave so much time between this chapter and the next. (Though the schedule might push to every two weeks, instead of every one. Just. Just saying.)
> 
> More Luf and Marco in this chapter! And the word hedge, a million times.

"We're going to get in trouble," Nami grumbles, not for the first time.

 

Zoro rolls his eyes as he leans over the fence gate to unhook it. "You can go wait in the house if you want. Take a nap so you have plausible deniability."

 

"I can't believe you know what _plausible deniability_ means," Sanji mutters.

 

The swordsman shoots him a dirty look. "Do you wanna stay here?" He pushes open the gate and steps through, walking a little ways down the path. "It looks wide enough for the wheelchair at first, but it tapers out. Might want to bring the crutches. If you can _handle_ that, anyway."

 

Sanji rolls his eyes and rolls himself over to the area just beside the fence and unstraps his crutches from the back of the chair. He slips his cast support belt around his waist and secures the one around his cast as well before using the crutches to heave himself up. "I'll be fine. Are you sure _you_ can handle it? Dangerous flora and dangerous fauna in those woods, you know."

 

"Scared?" Zoro shoots back.

 

"I'd just hate for your idiot self to fall asleep in a weird place and get bitten by a snake. We'd have to amputate your arm --" Sanji mimes sawing something off, then lifts his broken leg so he can try to fasten the buckles. After a couple of near stumbles, he waves to Nami. "Ah, Nami-swan --"

 

"Just make sure to move fast on those crutches so a tiger doesn't eat your leg."

 

"There are no _tigers_ here--"

 

"Guys!" Nami snaps, moving over to Sanji's side so she can connect the belts on his cast and waist. She gives them a tug to make sure they're secure, then pats Sanji's shoulder. "Would you shut up? We're breaking Shanks' rules. We're gonna get in trouble, fired, Usopp's dad is gonna whup his ass--"

 

Usopp, who had been shifting nervously by the gate and fiddling with the focus on his camera, startles when he's suddenly brought into the conversation. "I've never gotten a _beating_."

 

"Usopp's gonna get _grounded--"_

 

"You worry too much," Zoro says, walking a little deeper into the forest. "You're twenty, live a little."

 

 _"Roronoa Zowo -- **Zoro**_ \--" Nami groans, stomping her foot. "Goddamn, I hate saying your full name."

 

"Then don't say my name!"

 

" _Say my name, say my name_ ," Usopp sings nervously.

 

Nami looks over at him, frowning. "Are you going to be okay? You look like you're gonna die." She steps past the gate finally, obviously resigned to whatever adventure Zoro is going to take them on. She gestures for Usopp to follow her. "Come on Usopp, you and I can stick together."

 

"I think I actually might be coming down with I'm-Scared-Of-That-Forest-Itis. It's a deadly disease, if I go in there, I'll die immediately," he says.

 

"Come on, Sharpshooter," Sanji says, ambling through the gate with as much poise as possible when he's on crutches. "I'll protect you."

 

"I'll protect you, says idiot with broken leg who couldn't even protect himself from the broken leg." Zoro waves at Usopp. "If you don't want to come, you don't have to, but you get to tell Shanks why we're not here."

 

Usopp hurriedly enters the gate and closes it. "Let's go! Brave Explorer Usopp and his band of Merry Miscreants are on the cusp of a new adventure!" He hurries along the path past Zoro.

 

Zoro runs after him. "Usopp, let me go first, you're gonna fucking trip --"

 

There's a loud yelp from ahead as, predictably, Usopp trips. It's followed shortly by a loud grunt and yet another yelp as, also predictably, Zoro trips over Usopp and falls on him.

 

Nami sighs. "We're gonna die."

 

Sanji taps the back of her leg with his crutch and grins. "We're going to die _adventurously_."

 

She snorts, starting after the other two. "Why am I friends with a bunch of fool boys anyway?"

 

"Aw, you love us."

 

Nami looks back at Sanji with a grin. "I love money, girls, and glamorous things. Which one are you?"

 

Sanji sniffs, leaning on his left crutch so he can free a hand to fan himself. "A glamorous thing, obviously --"

 

Nami cackles. "Yeah, you're sure fabulous alright --"

 

Zoro is helping Usopp to his feet by the time Nami and Sanji catch up to them. The swordsman brushes him off roughly, then continues down the path. "Man," he says. "It's really nice out here. I could take a jog around this place."

 

Nami looks up into the trees. It really _is_ pretty. "Like something you'd read about in a storybook," she says, reaching up to touch some of the tree leaves. "Everything is so green."

 

Sanji is eyeing the ground critically. "Green and full of bugs, I'm sure."

 

"Oh, shut up Sanji. The big bad bugs aren't going to hurt you," Zoro scoffs.

 

Usopp looks over at Sanji and grins. "I'll protect you, Sanji."

 

Sanji snorts a little, but shoots Usopp a grateful smile anyway. "Thanks, sharpshooter."

 

Nami walks a little ways ahead, then turns back to the group. "Hey, the path forks here. Left or right?"

 

"Left," Zoro says.

 

"Right," Sanji says.

 

Nami gives them both an unimpressed look, then pulls a coin out of her pocket. "Call heads or tails." She flips it.

 

"Heads!" Zoro calls, giving Sanji a small shove.

 

"Tails!" Sanji hisses back, swinging a crutch at the other.

 

Nami holds up the coin. "Heads," she says. "Tough luck, Sanji. C'mon guys." She wanders off to the right, looking up at some low-hanging vines.

 

The party follows her, Sanji and Zoro glaring at each other the whole way. Usopp sighs and lifts his camera, taking a few scenery pictures.

 

"It really is gorgeous here," he says. He stops when he notices a large beetle on a tree trunk nearby. He gasps softly and takes a picture, then steps closer to take another.

 

A slight movement to the right catches his attention and he looks to the left, feeling tense for a second. Shanks' words about the Grand Line play in the back of his mind. Could he have gotten too close to something?? He leans to the side, slowly, carefully, ready to back away slowly if he sees something he doesn't like.

 

What he sees, though, is just a bird sitting on the edge of a stone birdbath. Usopp lets out a small breath of relief and walks closer to the birdbath so he can take a picture. The bird eyes him cautiously, but after a moment seems to deem him nonthreatening enough to continue it's bath.

 

Usopp smiles and take a quick few pictures. He steps a bit closer and crouches, moving more to the right so he can get a new angle, then pauses, peering up at the towering wall of bushes behind the birdbath. They seem just a bit too neatly trimmed to be natural.

 

* * *

 

 

Ahead of him a few paces, Nami is leading Zoro and Sanji further down the path. Her eyes are skyward, following the patterns of the sky between the treetops, enjoying the bits of sun that slip through and drip onto her face and arms.

 

“I wonder where all of these paths lead?” Sanji muses to her right. “Different parts of the preserve? Do you think there are buildings further out here?”

 

“Maybe! There might be a waypoint station or something. For monitoring… preservation… things.”

 

“Ahhh, Nami-swan is so smart~”

 

Zoro ignores the ramblings on of his friends while he studies the green distance, eyes lingering on every shadow and every shift of the leaves. His father – if you can really call Mihawk a father – had trained him to listen to his instincts when they told him to be wary, no matter how unrealistic his mind told him his fear was. Zoro thought the old swordsman was a bit paranoid, honestly, but he saw merit in trusting your instincts, as those, at least, had never led him astray.

 

He just doesn’t quite understand why his instincts are telling him that he’s in danger here. Yes, he saw Sabo. He understands that something bad befell him here. Yes, he heard Shanks. He understands that there are places here that are dangerous. But logic tells him that those places wouldn’t be this close to the house, not when the only protection between what’s out here and what’s in there is a rickety old fence that creaks when a nearly comatose twenty-something presses himself lightly against it. Besides, if the worry is something like poisonous frogs or snakes or insects, what is a fence going to do to keep them out of the yard? Pesticides aren’t foolproof either – or good for the flowers Shanks seems so fond of.

 

Yet still he finds himself tense, as if there were the weight of a hundred hungry gazes on his back.

 

“I feel like I’m being watched,” he mutters finally, uncomfortable with the feeling enough to voice it out loud.

 

“By who?” Nami asks, peering around cautiously. “There’s nobody here but us.”

 

“I dunno,” Zoro says, frustration curling in his chest as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “By the forest, I guess.”

 

Sanji looks like he’s going to open his mouth and make some sort of useless and antagonizing comment that’ll make Zoro want to smack him (Zoro always wants to smack him) when, abruptly, a tree branch crashes to the ground in front of Nami.

 

Nami yelps and jumps back, nearly bowling Sanji over. “Homygodwhat!”

 

Zoro tenses, looking up at the tree as his hands move from his pockets to the hilts of his swords. _Use the back of the swords to fend anything off_ , he reminds himself. He doesn’t want to injure any sort of creature that needs preserving if he can help it. He doesn’t see anything at first – he doesn’t even see _where_ the branch broke off – until he notices a split second of color (blue, and maybe pink?) near a broken stub of wood high above their heads. Besides the color that was most likely a bug of some kind, he doesn’t see anything else.

 

“Might have been already broken,” he grunts, letting go of his swords.

 

Nami and Sanji are holding each other, sort of, Nami to steady Sanji and Sanji to comfort Nami.

 

“That was close,” Nami says nervously. “Maybe we should head back. Some of these trees look old… maybe some are rotted.” She lets go of Sanji after making sure he won’t fall over.

 

“It’s just a branch, Nami,” Zoro says with a scoff. “You’re fine.” He crouches down to give it a good grip – its not big, but it’s got a lot of leaves, so it’s probably a little heavy. He moves it aside so it won’t hamper Sanji’s progression, then straightens up to dust himself off. “The path is pretty long and we have a lot of time before the time Shanks usually heads back.”

 

Nami looks grumpy, but there’s still a big of resignation in her tone when she speaks. “Fine, whatever.” She looks around. “Where’s Usopp?”

 

Sanji blinks, casting his own gaze around. There’s a flash of panic on his face that he can’t hide quick enough when he realizes Usopp isn’t beside him or hovering behind him as he is usually wont to do. “Quickshot?” he calls. “Where -- ?”

 

Usopp’s voice answers before he can get the full sentence out. The cloudy haired man is waving at them from about a yard back, looking excited. "Hey you guys! Come here, I think I found something!"

 

The look of relief that crosses Sanji’s face when his eyes land on Usopp makes Zoro feel embarrassed for him. He really should do something about that.

 

* * *

 

 

"What is it?" Nami asks as she and the others make their way back over to him. They’d been fussing around by a tree branch a ways away from where he’d stopped. He’d seen them in time to watch Zoro move a branch out of the path, probably for Sanji’s benefit, and in time to hear Sanji call for him pretty clearly. _Quickshot_. He really liked that nickname.

 

"Dunno," Usopp says, moving along the hedges. He can see another birdbath up ahead. What an odd placement? Why would these just be out here in the middle of the forest? He stops at the second birdbath, contemplating it for a moment, then turns around and goes back the way he came, his eyes on the bottom of the hedges.

 

Nami stops by the first birdbath and peers into it, smiling a little at her reflection. She fluffs her hair a little, then looks down at the base where she finds hollows and stained glass. "This is just like the fountain at the house!"

 

Zoro squints over at the other fountain. "Maybe they were a set."

 

"They're so pretty..." Nami sighs, running her fingers along the sculpted edges of the fountain. "I wonder if Shanks will tell me where he got them."

 

"Hey Shanks, I broke your rules and went into the forest and saw those birdbaths out by your hedges. I like them a lot, where'd you get them?" Zoro recites in perfect deadpan, his arms crossed over his chest.

 

Nami scowls at him. "I was just going to ask him where he got the fountain."

 

Sanji hums, leaning over to inspect the birdbath himself. "What do you need a birdbath for, Nami?" he asks curiously.

 

She shrugs. "Well, when I'm older and have a house, I want to put these in my garden. I think they'll be super pretty." She hums. "You took pictures, right Usopp? I'll put them in my dream house book."

 

"Yeah, I did," he says absently, still staring at the bottoms of the hedges with a small frown on his face. Suddenly, he claps his hands. "Aha!" he exclaims. "Found it!"

 

Sanji looks over at him. "Found what?"

 

Usopp points excitedly at the bottom of the hedges. "There's no hedge here right in the center! It's just the hedges by the birdhouses grown sideways." He shuffles over and points to a midway point between the two hedges where there's a barely noticeable divot in the leaves. "They must have grown over the entrance to... whatever is behind here!"

 

Sanji's brow furrows and he looks up at the top of the hedges. "How could they have overgrown _only_ sideways? The tops are pretty perfect."

 

Nami squints at the tops. "Yeah, it's a clean cut all the way across."

 

Usopp frowns. "That -- _is_ weird, but the rest of the hedges to either side are a uniform width and these are the only two that expand."

 

"Someone really must have wanted this to stay hidden," Zoro muses, even as he pulls out two of his swords.

 

"What are you doing?" Nami asks wearily, already stepping back.

 

"Trimming the hedges," he replies. He lifts his swords, falling into a familiar stance and breathing in slowly. He's moving on his exhale, muscles tensing as he swings his swords into a simultaneous upstroke and downstroke in his next movement.

 

Usopp yelps as the branches and leaves give under Zoro's blades as if they were butter. The section of the hedge he cut crumbles into a messy pile. "Zoro! Now Shanks will definitely know we were out here!"

 

The swordsman mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _live fast die hard_ , then sheathes his swords and begins to move the fallen branches and leaves out of the way for Sanji. He pauses briefly once he's close to the bottom of the pile, frowning a bit.

 

"There's a stone pathway under here," he comments, rubbing his knuckles over the dirt between the two hedges. Sure enough, there is a collection of round stepping stones hidden beneath a small collection of leaves and a thing layer of dirt.

 

Nami steps up behind him, peering past him into the closed off area. "Whoa," she says, awe clear in her voice. "You guys _have_ to see this!"

 

Usopp and Sanji move closer to the opening in the hedges and each make a soft noise of surprise at what they find.

 

Through the hedges is what looks like a small park, pristine and beautiful like a small wonderland. The grass seems to nearly glow from how lush and green it is, and there's a white stone stepping path leading from the entrance all the way out to a white gazebo that overlooks a pond. Flowers fan out on either side of the stone walkway, dotting the entire field in color. The stones continue around the pond, encircling it completely, and connecting the gazebo to a boathouse on the other side of the pond. Towards the middle of the pond is a small island, completely overgrown with the most breathtakingly beautiful flowers and trees any of them have ever seen. The water around it is clear and blue and beautiful, more like glass than liquid.

 

"It's incredible..." Usopp says, lifting his camera almost absently to his face so he can photograph the area. "Why didn't Shanks tell us about this place?"

 

Zoro is frowning around at the scenery. He looks down to the stones under his hand, dirty and near hidden, then follows them along the bath -- clean and seemingly unaffected by weathering, as if they'd been freshly laid. The whole park looked untouched, really, as if it had been created only yesterday.

 

He looks behind him at Sanji and can see the same reservations on his face. The hedges had completely grown over the entrance, and there were no other visible ways into the park. So how was it this well kept?

 

"Something doesn't stay this nice without daily upkeep," Sanji says. "But who's been doing it? Another person we don't know about?"

 

Nami waves him off. "Calm down! It's probably Shanks."

 

Sanji looks at her. "Shanks?"

 

"Yeah!" she says. "This must be where he goes every day. Or, one of his stops at least, since he's not here now."

 

Zoro furrows his brow. "We had to cut the hedge to get inside."

 

Nami shrugs. "Usopp said they weren't connected. Maybe he just... squeezes through."

 

Zoro makes a face. "Why would he do that when he can just trim back the hedge?"

 

Nami shrugs. "Maybe he just doesn't have the time! He's short three people and he seems kind of laid back. He's just waiting to get to it another time."

 

"Well, he's definitely going to know we were here, then," Usopp says.

 

He moves to step through the hedges but Zoro holds out an arm to stop him. He drops a hand onto the sheath of one of his swords and steps through first, cautiously, as if he half expects someone to spring out at him from just inside the entrance. No one does, though, so he relaxes a bit and wave the rest of them through.

 

The others join him quickly enough (as quickly as Sanji can, anyway) and immediately fan out to look at everything. Sanji crutches over to the pond to peer into it, while Usopp dances around anxiously looking for a good place to sit and take pictures and Nami walks over to the gazebo so she can look around the whole park. Zoro watches them all for a moment, keeping a closer eye on Sanji than the others just in case he trips and falls into the lake like a moron. As he's watching them, he begins moving around the inside of the hedge wall, letting himself admire the view. But just a _little_. He has a reputation to uphold or something.

 

"I think I see fish!" Sanji exclaims. "--Or not? I think I see _something_."

 

Nami leans over the edge of the gazebo fence and peers into the water. "There -- ? No, wait. No. Yeah? No." She scratches the back of her head with a frown. "Huh. I kind of see what you mean? Maybe it's ripples."

 

"Or maybe the fish are invisible," Zoro intones from where he's still walking the perimeter.

 

"Maybe your face is invisible," Sanji says absently, not really paying attention to Zoro. He's trying to concentrate on the weird movements he keeps thinking he's seeing in the water. There's nothing _there_ , but the water is moving like there is.

 

Zoro wrinkles his nose. "I wish your face were invisible."

 

Nami rolls her eyes, leaning on the rail so she can watch the water and relax for a minute. This isn't so bad, really. She'd been nervous leaving the yard without Franky, and she's still sort of nervous about Shanks getting angry with them (or worse, making the Disappointed Face that her mom always used to give her when she did something bad), but she finds it hard to think about things like that now. The moment she'd stepped into the park the tension just sort of melted away from her shoulders. The whole place gave off a very... comfortable vibe.

 

A flash of color catches her eye and she turns her head. A butterfly has landed on the gazebo by her hand - the pink and blue butterfly from the house, she realizes with a start. Did it follow her here? "No way," she breathes, crouching down so she can get as close to it as she dares to inspect the wings. How could it have followed her all the way from the house? It _must_ be a different butterfly. Still, the pattern on its wings are identical to the one from the house...

 

She's drawn out of her thoughts by a short yelp from Usopp. "Aw, c'mon Zoro, no -- you don't know what's in the water."

 

She looks up, startled, only to see Zoro stripping out of his shirt and kicking off his shoes. "Zoro!" she snaps. "What are you doing?"

 

"Gonna take a swim," he says. "Figure out what your mystery ripples are."

 

"Listen to Usopp!" she snaps, the anxiety from before returning in a sudden surge. "You don't know what's in there! You could get sick!"

 

"I won't get sick. Only people who get sick get sick. I don't get sick," Zoro explains, as if anything he just said made any sense. He sits down in the grass and pulls off his socks, stuffing them in his boots.

 

"Zoro!" Usopp whines. "There could be bacteria!"

 

The swordsman only yawns, stretching a bit before moving onto his knees to peer into the pond. "The water's not even scummy. It'll be fine."

 

Nami slaps her hands on the railing. "Zoro, please!"

 

He sighs, then sits back and looks over at her. "Seriously, Nami, what? It's water. If I can swim in the nasty ass ocean at our nasty ass beach back home and be fine, I can swim in a pond and not catch malaria."

 

"You catch malaria from mosquitoes," Usopp says quietly.

 

Zoro glares over at him. "Usopp!"

 

"Sorry!"

 

Nami sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm just still wigged out from yesterday. I don't want you to catch some weird disease."

 

Zoro rolls his eyes. "I'll be fine. I'll jump in, and when you see it's fine, we can all take a swim." He grins over at Sanji. "Oh, well, not _all_ of us --"

 

"Bite me."

 

Nami pouts a little, but looks over at Usopp. He shrugs a little and edges closer to the pond so he can peer into it.

 

"It really doesn't look bad, Nami," he says gently. "You probably don't have anything to worry about."

 

She sighs. "Alright then. Whatever! Do what you want. I'm going to sit right over here, thanks."

 

"Suit yourself." Zoro picks himself back up and moves closer to the edge of the pond. The water ripples strangely near his feet, almost as if the currents are coming from all different directions to meet there, waiting for him. The thought is a little ominous and it comes from nowhere, so he shakes himself.

 

 _Can't let all this shit get in my head,_ he thinks, stretching one final time. _It's just a pond. Just a forest. Nothing weird here._

 

And still, he feels like he's being watched from all sides. He has since he entered the forest, and maybe it's put him more on edge than he'd like to admit. He doesn't usually ignore his instincts this way, but his mind can't rationalize this feeling. They're alone here. He just needs to dive into the water and prove to himself - and to Nami and Usopp, still shaken up and on edge themselves - that there's nothing here.

 

"Scared, mosshead?" Sanji teases from his place at the other end of the pond. (Zoro tries to ignore how the ripples look like they're gathering at his feet as well.) "You going to jump in or not?"

 

"Yeah yeah, shut up," he grunts. "Here I go."

 

And then, with a loud _crack_ as sudden as gunfire, a tree just outside the hedge wall falls over.

 

* * *

 

 

Marco is a simple man. He likes sunny days and cold nights sleeping in fire. He enjoys long afternoons spent with his two best friends; Ace and Thatch, goofing off and rough housing, sharing food and maybe a kiss or two if the mood suits them. Watching his younger brothers and sisters running around and laughing til they tire themselves out and fall asleep in little piles is fun. Sleeping in piles of siblings himself is fun too, when the night is warm enough for him to pull himself out of the fire pits.

 

The bottom line is, he likes being around his family. What he _doesn't_ like is people who hurt his family and think they can just get away with it.

 

He looks down at his armful of mopey dragon selkie and sighs, nuzzling his jaw against the side of his head. "We're going to find your key, Luffy, don't worry about it."

 

Luffy huffs, resting his chin on Marco's shoulder as his eyes flick this way and that, as if he's hoping he'll just find his key laying on the ground. "I know I left it at my nest. I _know_ I did."

 

Marco hums. "How did you leave it, yoi?"

 

"Hm?" Luffy tilts his head back, his earfins flicking thoughtfully against Marco's face. "It was in my other shorts, the red ones. I had already changed into my other ones because Ace and I got all muddy and wet on accounts of we were playing in the faerie sanctuary and a naiad got mad at me and tried to drag me under, so we had a fight."

 

The phoenix snorts, jostling Luffy a little playfully. "Stop going near the naiad lake. You know they don't like selkies."

 

Luffy puffs out his cheeks poutily. "I do what I want. And I _wanted_ to see _Vivi_."

 

Marco smiles, rubbing Luffy's back a little. "So, you got wet and changed your clothes. Did you check to see if your key was in your pocket before you left?"

 

He's quiet for a moment, humming softly as he tries to draw the memory forward. "I -- didn't!!!" he says with a bright little gasp. He begins wriggling in Marco's arms so he sets him down, letting him vibrate on his feet as he pleases. "I didn't check, Marco! So!!!"

 

"You might have dropped it at the lake," Marco finishes, his smile pulling into a grin as Luffy seems to brightened by at least a few hundred watts. There. That's much better. "Let's go look for your key, huh? If the naiad's have it we can ask the mermaid princess to send over a demand for it's release."

 

"Shirawimpshi is too much of a crybaby to _demand_ anything," Luffy says very matter-of-factly, swinging around to begin his march to the Faerie Sanctuary. "We'll have to ask her brothers!"

 

Marco laughs. "Alright, we'll ask one of the princes." He hums, then dips forward and charges past Luffy. "Race ya, yoi!"

 

Luffy releases a loud whoop of laughter and chases after him. The two dart around the forest together for a little bit, Luffy nearly snatching the edge of Marco's shirt with his claws a few times. But, the phoenix is older and has longer legs so he easily outpaces the other just enough to stay safe.

 

The two reach the Sanctuary in no time, and Luffy is about to scale a tree and vault over the hedge wall when Marco hears the voice. He reaches over and snatches the back of Luffy's shirt and drags him back against his chest.

 

"Hush," he murmurs to the bewildered young dragon selkie. "Do you hear that?"

 

Luffy's earfins untuck themselves from behind his ear and fan out to their full length. Just beyond the wall drifts a voice.

 

_"I'll be fine. I'll jump in, and when you see it's fine, we can all take a swim. Oh, well, not all of us --"_

 

He brightens up a bit and begins bouncing in Marco's grasp. "Oh! That's the green caretaker!!" He looks up at Marco and grins. "He's my favorite of the new ones."

 

Marco gives Luffy a brief smile, then looks back at the hedge wall with a frown. "What is he doing at the Sanctuary?"

 

Luffy's earfins flick a little more and his brow furrows a bit in concentration. "It sounds like all of the new caretakers are there -- well, the one with the detachable eye isn't talking, but I can hear him breathing if I listen very hard."

 

"Detachable eye?"

 

"You know... like..." He holds up his hands as if he's holding something. "He holds it in his hands! And then he puts it on his face when he wants to see."

 

Marco pats his shoulder a bit before moving away from him to creep closer to the hedges. "That's weird Luffy," he teases absently as he moves some of the leaves aside to peer through.

 

Luffy gasps. "You're weird!"

 

The phoenix echoes his gasp playfully. He sees four young humans standing around the Sanctuary pond where the Faerie Island sits and winces. They're not thinking about doing what he thinks they're thinking about doing, are they? He peers down at the water and sees scores of willowy naiads gathered at the feet of the humans closest to the bank, all grinning widely, long water-clear fingers flexing in anticipation. Crap.

 

"Luffy," Marco calls, still keeping his eyes on the humans. "Make a loud noise."

 

"What? Why?"

 

"We need to scare the humans away from the naiad lake," Marco says. "They can't see them so the naiads can't reach for them, but if he jumps in they'll be allowed to drown him."

 

Luffy looks around a little helplessly. "I could yell?" he says uncertainly. "I don't know if my mist form sounds scary or not."

 

"You're not wearing your pelt right now so they would only hear _you_ yelling and that would scare them in a way we don't want, I think. I could transform but I have no idea what my mist form sounds like, I've only ever seen pictures of it," Marco says, a little frustrated. He's going to have to ask Shanks more about how he sounds through the mist. The green haired one is beginning to stretch for his dive.

 

 _"Scared, mosshead?"_ The blonde human teases. _"You going to jump in or not?"_

 

"Something, Luffy! Now!"

 

Luffy spins around and rears his arms back just as the green haired caretaker barks his assent and prepares to dive. Without much thought, he slams both his palms into the nearest tree and the air fills with a loud _crack_ as it falls over. Marco watches the humans all jump in fright. The green haired one stumbles away from the water and reaches for a bundle of swords on the ground, and Marco is briefly worried about the way the blonde human nearly sways right into the water, but the brown haired human -- the one holding the "detachable eye" -- grabs him before he can fall in.

 

He can hear them all panicking ( _"What was that?" "Was it an animal?" "What animal could have been big enough to do that?!" "WAS IT A GORILLA?" "Usopp, why would they have a gorilla here?!"_ ) and he laughs, falling away from the hedges to sit down.

 

"That was close!" he remarks, running a hand through his hair. "I don't think Shanks' would have liked losing his new caretakers that way." He peers over his shoulder at Luffy. "There wasn't -- a dryad in that tree you just knocked over, was there?"

 

Luffy stares down at it, frowning. "I _hope_ not." He scratches the back of his head. "They _do_ like the faerie sanctuary... but I don't see any magic trails."

 

There's a movement from the left and a pretty woman with dark hair and a kind face leans out of the bark on a tree. "There wasn't a dryad in that one, no. But try to be a bit more careful in the future, alright Luffy?"

 

Luffy gasps, immediately hurrying to the woman's side. "Hi Makino! Aw, did I scare you? I'm sorry..."

 

Makino laughs softly and ruffles the dragon selkie's hair. "It's alright. There are, however, consequences to your actions. Please keep that in mind."

 

Luffy nuzzles up into her hand and nods, and she slowly sinks back into the tree. Marco snickers.

 

"You got scolded~"

 

Luffy puffs out his cheeks and gives Marco a swift kick to the hip. "You told me to make a noise!"

 

Marco laughs loudly, shifting away from his grumpy friend. "I didn't tell you to knock down a _tree_."

 

Luffy looks like he's about to make a retort when suddenly the voices from earlier are much closer.

 

 _"I think I hear something,"_ says the orange haired human nervously. _"It's coming from over here."_

 

 _"Why are we getting close to it?!"_ the long nosed human whines, his voice shaky with fear. _"It knocked over a tree!"_

 

 _"The tree could have been rotten, Usopp."_ The blonde one might be trying to reassure the other, but it still sounds uneasy.

 

 _"It was still a big tree."_ The green one just sounds tense. He's also the closest, and Marco is sure that if he looked, he'd see him with all three of his swords out.

 

 _"We should just back away and head back for the house. If we go quickly, we might be able to miss it! We shouldn't approach anything here!"_ the long nosed one -- Usopp? -- urges.

 

Marco huffs. "I guess I was right, they do hear you talk in your bipedal form," he mutters. He should just let them panic and run, but on the off chance they do try to get closer to see what happened, they might see Luffy. Shanks told Marco before that without his pelt Luffy presents as a human boy, so if they saw him, there'd be trouble. He’s not quite sure if they hear him as a human in his bipedal form, he’s never asked Shanks that, but that’s not the problem here. His mist form is harmless enough, and he can transform quick enough, but Luffy is another story. Even if Luffy could put on his pelt and transform in time, he's not sure what a dragon selkie would look like through the mist. Something terrifying, probably.

 

Oh well. Marco rolls his shoulders a bit as blue fire begins rolling down his back and arms. The flames spread over his whole body and he can feel himself transforming. Luffy's mist form might be a mystery, but Marco's is _lovely_.

 

"Be right back, Luffy," he says. "Stay hidden."

 

"Okay Marco!" He scampers away to climb Makino's tree and hide among her branches.

 

Marco gives a good beat of his wings. Time to meet the humans.

 

* * *

 

 

Nami is perfectly alright hiding behind Zoro as he inspects the hedges. He only has one sword drawn -- his white one -- and he has it flipped so the back of the blade is facing to whatever they heard rustling about behind the hedges. Usopp isn't far behind her anyway, so she feels a little better about hiding.

 

"Are we absolutely certain it's not a gorilla?" Usopp asks nervously.

 

"Usopp, why would there be a gorilla here?" Zoro steps a little closer to the hedges. "You're just freaking yourself out. Chill."

 

The _I'm here_ is unspoken but appreciated. Usopp inches a little closer to Nami.

 

The rustling in the hedges gets more pronounced suddenly, heading higher and higher, as if something were climbing to the top of the hedge. Zoro tenses and tilts his sword slightly so the back of the blade is angled up in case he needs to block something.

 

They aren't left waiting long, fortunately for Usopp's mounting anxiety. A rather large blue bird settles itself atop the hedges and shuffles to the edge, its long neck tilted forward as if it were peering down at them in curiosity.

 

Nami gasps, standing up a little straighter. "A bird!"

 

"Oh my god," Usopp whispers. "Did the bird do it?"

 

"Usopp!" Nami exclaims. "It's a _bird._ "

 

Zoro slowly relaxes, eyeing the hedge uncertainly. "I don't hear anything else. Either whatever knocked down the tree is gone or it might have just fallen because it had a rotten base."

 

Nami shifts, her brow furrowing a little. Zoro turns to look at her just as she shakes her head, one hand lifting to press against her cheek. "There _was_ a pretty strong gust of wind just before it fell. That must have been the reason."

 

Zoro frowns. There hadn't been any wind... had there? Suddenly he finds himself unsure. His head feels a little weird all of a sudden, light, almost as if his thoughts themselves were rearranging themselves to fit what Nami had said. No, that's a stupid thought. There had definitely been a gust of wind.

 

"Yeah," Usopp says slowly. "Wind. I remember."

 

Sanji nods absently, staring up at the bird. "That thing is huge."

 

Nami shakes herself again, then clasps her hands in front of her. "It's _beautiful!"_

 

Zoro sheathes his sword and grunts a little. "Yeah, that's a nice chicken."

 

Nami turns to stare at him incredulously, her nose wrinkling in open disgust. "It's not a _chicken!"_ She gestures at it. "It's -- obviously a bird of paradise or something!"

 

"Those aren't native to here!" Usopp says, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Why would it be here?"

 

"The orange ones are," Zoro says. "Perona was talking about it once."

 

"Those are the _flowers_ ," Usopp says. "Not the birds!"

 

"Oh, well," he says. "That makes her talking about grinding them up a little less unpleasant."

 

Sanji shoots him a weird look even as Usopp throws his hands up. "Still. If it _is_ a bird of paradise, that brings us right back to _why is it here_?"

 

"It's a nature preserve Usopp," Nami points out. "Maybe they're _preserving it_."

 

"Birds of Paradise aren't endangered!" Usopp frowns a little, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "A... are they?"

 

"There are at least 39 different species of Birds of Paradise," Sanji says. "While I don't think any are endangered, it _could_ be possible? That aside, I'm not even sure if any could live in this climate, since they're usually found in the areas between Australia and New Guinea."

 

"Huh," Nami says. "Maybe it's an oddball."

 

"It's way too big to be a bird of paradise, isn't it?" Usopp tries. "They're... small. Around the size of a crow, give or take."

 

"Come on guys," Zoro grunts, crossing his arms. "It's a -- what are they called? Blue heron. Look at the long neck."

 

Usopp waves a hand uncertainly. "I don't think Blue Herons get _that_ blue unless they're newborns."

 

Sanji squints at it. "Actually, Usopp is right. That's a peacock."

 

The bird, previously resting on the edge of the hedge almost boredly, seems to perk up a little when Sanji identifies it. It tilts it's head back and it's feathers ruffle a little, even as it walks to the side, revealing a long train of gorgeous golden feathers. It lets the feathers spill over the side like a waterfall. They're dotted with vivid, electric blue spots at the tips like a traditional peacocks feathers, making a stunning contrast.

 

Nami gasps again, louder this time. "Oh my god! It's _gorgeous..."_

 

Usopp, meanwhile, looks wholly bewildered. "What? No! Peacocks -- peacocks don't have golden feathers!"

 

"Sure they do," Zoro chimes in. "There's a golden peacock restaurant by the school."

 

"Oh, yeah!" Nami exclaims. "See, Usopp?"

 

"That's a _logo!!"_ Usopp exclaims. "Logos are not reality!!"

 

The peacock makes a shrill, staccato noise that makes them all jump. Sanji wrinkles his nose.

 

"Is it _laughing_ at us?"

 

“Hm,” says a voice from behind them. “Now why would a peacock be laughing at a bunch of rule-breakers about to get caught?”

 

Nami whirls around, eyes wide with shock. “Shanks!” she exclaims. Her sharp turn sends her crashing into Sanji, who in turn crashes into Zoro, sending them both face-first into the bushes.

 

“FUCK.” That was Sanji, as Nami landed on his bad leg. She scrambles to move and ends up kneeing him dead center on his cast before she goes rolling off the boy pile. Zoro, beneath him, grunts in acute displeasure as Sanji rams his forehead into his back, probably as a muted attempt to dull the pain no doubt throbbing through his leg and up into his entire body. Zoro feels a little bad about that, which is probably why he doesn’t throw the injured man off, despite the fact he’s laying on an unsheathed blade and has a mouthful of leaves.

 

Usopp stares at his fallen friends, then back at Shanks. The redhead doesn’t _look_ angry. Concerned, maybe, at the state of his young workers. Amused, definitely a little. He glances up to meet Usopp’s gaze and though his expression doesn’t change, Usopp’s heart still gives an anxious flip in his chest and he just... sits down, right next to the boy pile. This is fine.

 

Shanks laughs a little, his grin wide and sincere. “Ah, well. I think you all just punished yourself enough for your little walk in the park. And I was so looking forward to pretending to be angry at you for a couple of hours.”

 

“S-Shanks?” Usopp questions, because he’s the only one capable of speech at the moment. Nami is face down in the grass and seems to be slowly dying of mortification, Sanji is in pain, and a bug might crawl into Zoro’s mouth if he opens it.

 

The older man shrugs. “C’mon. Like I’ve never broken a rule.” He rubs the back of his head. “Actually, that might be too relaxed an attitude… I should probably scold you a little. Maybe over a big lunch for my hungry explorers. Benn’s making stew, I think!” He claps his hand against his stomach and gives Usopp a kind smile. “Really, I’m just glad you’re all okay. Pick yourselves up and lets head back to the house.”

 

Usopp feels a small rush of gratitude and warmth curl through him. The more he gets to know Shanks, the more he thinks he might understand his father’s willingness to travel the world twice over when the redhead asks him to. As he, the son of an adventurer, rushes to help his friends (injured in both body and dignity as they are) to their feet, he wonders if maybe he’ll ever meet a person as kind as him to follow blindly into a vast unknown.

 

* * *

 

 

When Shanks and the young caretakers are far out of sight, Marco, back in his bipedal form, motions for Luffy to come join him on the hedge. Luffy does so cheerfully, vaulting from Makino’s branches to land on the leaves beside Marco. They give a little under his weight, but he doesn’t seem afraid to fall. He lays his head on Marco’s shoulder and smiles.

 

“Aren’t they all great?” he asks.

 

Marco gives a small hum, unable to keep himself from smiling as well. He wraps an arm loosely around Luffy’s waist. “They sure are something, yoi.”

 

“The green one is my favorite,” Luffy tells him, as if he didn’t already tell him that earlier.

 

Marco laughs. “He’s very nice, that green one.”

 

“Did you see what I meant about the detachable eye??”

 

Marco nods. “I did indeed. Though, I think that’s just a camera, Luffy.”

 

Luffy’s brow furrows in confusion.

 

It’s not surprising Luffy might not know what a camera is. Technology rarely makes its way past the fence, probably to keep the various creatures around out of mischief that could get them and the preservation in trouble.

 

Even still, Marco smiles wider when Luffy retorts; “Mystery eye!” in a very matter-of-fact tone. Oh, this boy.

 

“C’mon, buddy,” Marco says. “You can tell me what you like about all of them while we look for your key.” He unwraps his arm and jumps off the hedges, the loops of gold and blue feathers tucked around his waist bouncing on his hips as he walks around.

 

“Okay!” Luffy exclaims, joining him on the ground. “Well, I like the one with the detachable eye because he always talks about cool and exciting things, and he’s really funny! _And_ ,” he puffs up here, so much so that he almost trips over one of the paving stones, “he thinks the lochness monster is _cool_.”

 

Marco snorts, moving onto his hands and knees to search. “And how do you know that?”

 

“I listen to their conversations at the garden sometimes,” he answers, inching closer to the naiad lake. A water-clear woman breaks the surface of the water and shakes her fist at him. Luffy blows a raspberry at her.

 

“You’re not supposed to be by the garden while the young caretakers are there,” Marco chides.

 

“I’m _curious_ ,” Luffy whines, as if that excuses him bending the rules of engagement with humans. “And I didn’t go the first time just because I was curious! I just --” He huffs, kicking a rock at the naiad harassing him as he circles the edge of the pond. “Wanted to make sure they were taking care of Sabo’s garden right.”

 

Marco winces a little, feeling a sharp curl of pain in his chest. The whole family took Sabo’s condition hard, as he was favored by most of the creatures of the forest for his mischief and his respect for nature. He was closest to Ace and Luffy, who had been the start of his family, but it was hard not to fall in love with him once you met him.

 

Marco favored him as well. How could he not? He could be a disrespectful little gremlin at times, but he made the phoenix’s heart race with joy whenever he smiled, whenever he laughed. He remembers long afternoons in the summertime, leaning against the enchanted fence around the garden and watching him work the fields until his nails were stained and his handsome face was covered in dirt and sweat. Some days the mischievous human would hold his hands over the fence to invite Luffy and Ace into his arms – and therefore into the yard, circumventing the protective charms – and they’d all play in the dirt and harass the chickens until a laughing Shanks came and shooed the three of them to Sabo’s cabin to clean up.

 

There was one day especially etched into his mind. He was up by the garden while the three brothers worked. He’d been leaning on the fence, laughing at Luffy and Ace spraying each other with the hose. Sabo had been standing near, a basket of colorful fruits on his hip.

 

_(“Hey, you,” Marco calls out, smirking at the way Sabo’s lips twist into an automatic smile at the sound of his voice._

 

“ _Pineapple Top,” Sabo greets him back, tilting his head so he can peer back at him. His eyes were brown then, warm and joyful, always sparkling in a slightly mischievous way that either made you want to run away or press yourself in close._

 

“ _That looks good, yoi,” he says, nodding towards the basket. “Give me something.”_

 

_The caretaker turns to him, smile spreading into a wide grin. His teeth are white and his cheeks are dimpled and rosy from the way he’d exerted himself that day. “What’ll you have, lazy bird?”_

 

_Marco paws at the air above the fence that he can’t pass without invitation. “Come here, I can’t reach from over there, yoi.”_

 

 _Sabo rocks back on the heels of his dirty workboots, tapping a free finger against his chin. “Can’t you,_ yoi? _” He steps closer anyway, moving the basket into both of his hands as he leans over the fence. “Take what you want.”_

 

 _And oh, Marco wanted. He_ _stabs a talon through a large ripe grape and brings it up to his lips. B_ _efore Sabo has a chance to_ _pull away_ _, he’s eaten it and closed the distance between them. Their kisses taste like fruit and they stay there til Ace sprays them both with the hose._ )

 

He sits back with a sigh, the memory making him feel old and tired. He looks back at Luffy, who had begun to look equally as sullen. He watches him kneel by the pond.

 

“Please, can you just tell me if I dropped my key here?” Luffy asks the naiads. “You can have it if you want it! I just need to know.”

 

The naiad in question spits a stream of water at Luffy’s face. Luffy looks like he’s about to launch himself at the watergirl and try to wrestle with her when a familiar glowing light approaches them both.

 

“Naiad,” Vivi commands irritably, smoothing her her pink gossamer gown down around her hips. She looks like she’d flown here fast. “Answer his question.”

 

The naiad gives the fairy princess a vindictive look before sighing and crossing her arms. “No, he didn’t drop his key,” she warbles. “There’s nothing like that in the yard, either. I watched him leave.” She then sinks into the water with a huff.

 

“We’ll keep looking, Luf,” Marco calls, feeling a bit helpless. “I’ll walk you home the same way you went with Ace. We’ll find the thing.”

 

Vivi alights on the brim of Luffy’s hat, peering down at him from her perch. She swings her long blue hair back and forth, a move that usually draws a few breathy giggles from her dragon selkie friend. Today, it does nothing. “What key are you looking for, Luffy?” she asks, worry clear on her tiny face.

 

Luffy looks up at her. “The key to Sabo’s house,” he says. “Someone let him out yesterday, and I lost my key sometime ago...”

 

Vivi winces. In that moment, put in plain language like that, it’s quite obvious what happened.

 

Marco feels his blood boil a little, on behalf of the guilt in Luffy’s eyes, on behalf of the panic he knows must be seizing Ace, and on behalf of every memory he has with Sabo. Someone tried to hurt him, to take advantage of his vulnerable state. That someone was going to _pay_.

 

“I’ll help you look,” Vivi says gently, crooning at her friend from atop his hat. “Me and every one of my fairies. I promise you. And we’ll protect Sabo’s cabin – you’re all family. No one will ever put him in danger again.”

 

Marco wished he felt as confident as Vivi sounded. He wished he believed that they’d walk home and find the key, laying innocently under some bush that Ace had stopped to chase his brother around. But he knew, that even with that hope, even if they _did_ find Luffy’s key, it couldn’t be ignored that what had happened was deliberate. Someone tried to hurt Sabo, for whatever reason, only days before Midsummer, while there were new still-misted caretakers running around. It couldn't be a coincidence. Something was about to happen. He just wished he knew what.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite popular belief, Ace and Sabo, as close as they are now, weren’t like that from the start.

 

Growing up, Ace was bitter. He had a lot of things to be bitter about, after all. His shoulders were small, but he bore a great burden on them, greater than even the strongest dragon child should.

 

He was born without a mother or father. He had them, once. He knew that because he was told that, by a man with cold eyes and gray hair and wrinkles set deep in his face. He might have looked kind if he smiled, but he never did. His mother had been beautiful and human, with cornsilk hair, the kindest brown eyes anyone ever saw, and freckles that dotted her skin like constellations. A human with magic, they said, not the kind you’re born with, but the kind you learn and perfect over years. She’d died giving birth to him, only ever holding him once.

 

His father had been a dragon. A criminal, the gray haired man said, his mouth in a tight grimace. He was a selfish creature who did as he pleased, traveling the world among humans without a care for law or sanctuary. He had many followers then, human and creature alike, which was taboo for thousands of reasons, and he broke laws left and right – revealing himself to misted humans, disrespecting the domain of other creatures, disregarding the rules of coexistence and balance in the name of freedom. Worst of all, he’d fallen in love with a human and created Ace. He’d been tried and killed almost half a year before Ace had been born, and his mother had died alone.

 

Ace never really cared about the kind of life his father led. He committed crimes Ace didn’t understand, and believed in things Ace was too young to understand. What was unforgivable in Ace’s eyes was how his selfishness left his mother abandoned, forced to have his child and die by herself. Ace took her name to honor her, when he was old enough to understand what names meant, and what it meant to be called Gol D. Ace.

 

The cold man had left him with Shanks when he was old enough to speak. Ace hated them both, wholly and completely – the cold man because of how he never wanted him, and Shanks because he wasn’t his mother. A dragon is born with the scents of his parents ingrained deep in his mind, to help them feel safe and secure in their nest, but with both of his parents dead, Ace was left surrounded by strangers in a world where there was no safe places. So he grew up bitter, and he grew up angry.

 

Angry.

 

Angry.

 

_Angry._

 

And then he met him. A human with cornsilk hair and brown eyes that had been born without mist. He had a smile like an imp and a jagged burn scar down the side of his face. He wore blue clothes and always had his head tilted upwards, as if watching the clouds and stars were the only things that ever meant anything in his whole life.

 

Ace hated him. Wholly and completely and without reason. He hated his smile, the way he walked, the way he talked. He hated the way he stayed out in the garden for hours on end, kneading the dirt between his fingers until it was soft and loose enough to be planted. He hated the way he left food out by the fence every evening because he knew Ace was there, watching him.

 

He hated the way he’d find him some nights, hands buried in the dirt and crying, as if he had something to cry about. He hated the way he’d look at him through wet eyelashes, small and human and alone, then look away and insult him for staring.

 

It took him a long time to realize that what he hated he most was that he could see himself in the anger and bitterness that hide in the deepest darks of his eyes.

 

They’d come a long way since then. They were attached at the hips, the two of them, and had between them a bratty yet sweet younger brother, and behind them a large and rowdy family. And in each other, most importantly, they had a place that they belonged. At least until now, anyway.

 

Sabo’s milky unseeing eyes stared through him where he sat perched on the end of his bed. Thatch had opted to wait outside while Ace visited with Sabo, because he knew Ace preferred to be alone if Luffy wasn’t with him. Ace lifts a hand to press his palm to Sabo’s cheek. In his mind, he pictures a sleep-warm Sabo pressing into his palm with a lazy grin, asking if he’d been woken up to work or to make mischief in the forest.

 

He doesn’t want to feel Sabo’s skin so clammy and cold. He wishes Sabo weren’t looking at him with blank eyes, like they’ve never known each other, and never will again. He finds himself missing the way he teases, his insults and his little schemes. He misses the way he’d sometimes get distracted mid conversation and wander off until Ace, indignant and enraged, tracked him down for a scuffle. There are so many things to list, too many. He just – wants him _back_.

 

His thumb brushes carefully over the crest of his cheek and leans in to press their foreheads together. “Come _back_ ,” he begs of him. “I need you. Luffy needs you. Everyone – everyone needs you, Sabo, _please_.”

 

Sabo doesn’t say anything and Ace fights the urge to shake him until he speaks.

 

“Tell me who let you out,” he hisses. “Tell me who’s trying to hurt you. _Tell me_.”

 

Sabo still says nothing.

 

He stands up sharply, and, with gentle hands pushes his brother down onto the bed so he can walk away from him, heading for the door. His chest hurts and he feels a familiar anger crawling its way up into his throat. This was his fault, he knew it in his core – he’s the reason Sabo is sick, so he’s the reason he’s in danger now.

 

He’s just about to exit the cabin when he hears it. A shuffling in the sheets behind him – he whirls around, worried Sabo might have tried to get up, but he only sees him staring with dead eyes, lips parted slightly.

 

“Coming,” he says. “Coming.”

 

And then his eyes close and he’s sound asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marco kisses Ace... Marco kisses Thatch... Marco kisses Sabo... Marco is a kissy bird. (The older Whitebeards are all very friendly.) Also, I'm making Sabo sound like All That, because everyone loves him, but we all know the truth. He is a Gremlin who Hangs Up without saying Goodbye, which means he is the devil.


	5. beginning of a fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drink the milk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've learned my lesson about promising updates before actually writing the updates -- my life is pretty hectic right now because it's busy season at my job and I no longer have several free days a week to write. This time, though, I've written the next two chapters already and have queued them to post on the 21st and the 4th! So, look forward to that!!
> 
> (And once again, sorry for the long delay! I really appreciate anyone who's still reading this!)

_So go on, dare me to lose, dare me to move, dare me to run_

_And you can dare me to prove something to you,_

_is that what you want?_

_I dare you to_

 

Nami’s hips sway to the sound of Daya’s voice coming from her phone. Her hands skim by her neck as they sway above her head to the slow beat, and she’s smiling almost serenely as she moves. She’s been told that she’s not not particularly a good dancer, but she’s never been really sure what that meant. When music is playing, her body moves, and she’s happy, and that’s all that really matters. Life is something that’s supposed to be fun, not something you have to be _good_ at, and she thinks that applies to everything anyone can do.

 

Sanji is by the stove, resting on one of his crutches while he stirs something in a frying pan. Whatever it is smells great, and she can’t wait to eat. It’s been a long morning, because Shanks asked them to pick the fruit from the trees in the greenhouse on top of the usual watering and taking care of the kitchen. She and Zoro had decided the best way to go about collecting would be to climb up into the tops of the trees and find the best of whatever they could find, and ended up with huge baskets full of fruit that they had to climb down with. It was easy enough for Mr. Muscle Man, but while Nami isn’t _weak_ , the fruits were heavy and she is small. When she’d finally managed to get down, there were scrapes on her arms from the tree bark, and she was sore all over. Oddly enough, though, she didn’t mind. She was tired, yeah, and Sanji had to come down from the house to help them carry all the fruit back, but she felt accomplished. Satisfied that she’d done some real hard work.

 

_Do it all, do it all, do it all ‘cuz I wanna_

_Do it all, do it all, do it all ‘cuz I’m gonna do everything_

_Do it all, do it all, do it all ‘cuz I wanna_

_Do it all, do it all, do it all ‘cuz I’m gonna do everything_

_So go on…_

 

Zoro is laying on the window seat in the living room (which isn’t quite long enough to fit him) and his swords are resting against the wall beside him. His head is pillowed on his arms and his legs are kicked up and holding on the edge of the window, and he looks like he’s asleep, though she’s not sure how he can sleep like that. He came home, deposited the fruit on the kitchen table, then wandered over to the window seat and hadn’t moved since.

 

(“He could have taken a shower at least,” Sanji grumbles as he wheels himself into the kitchen.

 

Nami shrugs and walks past the kitchen to the stairs. “More hot water for me~!”)

 

Usopp is sitting on the couch where Benn usually sits, tucked away in one corner in a Comfy Side-Lean (Nami prefers the Selfish Prick, herself). Shanks, Benn, and Franky are all still out, so he’s made himself quite at home. There are a few books spread out on the table in front of him, and a long beige sketchbook in his hands. His hair is down in a curly, springy poof after Nami had finished blowing it dry and he looks relaxed as he flips through the pages of the book.

 

_Everyone sees_

_But only I know_

_Nothing to lose, nothing to save, to make a whole_

_What if I should_

_make a loss?_

_Hold up both my hands, my fingers crossed_

 

The song changes to a more high energy song and Nami’s smile blows out to a grin and she begins bouncing on her toes from side to side, her hips swiveling in a wide arc.

 

_I don’t sleep well,_

_laying low_

_Never keepin’ up, never lettin’ go_

_What if I should_

_look away?_

_Every human touch will be replayed_

_Without restraint_

_Within our veins…_

 

Her arms stretch tall above her head and she swivels them with the movement, the rest of her bouncing and wiggling like a loon, and she laughs. Usopp looks up from the sketchbook and he grins. Nami zeroes in on him and grins back, taking her bouncing self towards him eagerly.

 

“We bide our time! Stay afloat! Keepin’ the sun! Up! Off! Our! Boat!” she sings to him, grabbing the arm of the couch. He laughs and leans away, even as she bounces in place next to him, gesturing at him dramatically. “I never asked to know, I never planned – _til’ it was swept! Out! Of! My! Haaaand!_ ”

 

She bounces forward until she’s sprawled against him and he’s laughing harder as she squirms into his lap. He has to toss the sketchbook onto the table with the rest of his books as she wheezes and squirms until she’s laying on her back across his lap, head thrown back as she continues singing very dramatically, her legs kicking in the air.

 

“ _KEEPIN’ THE DYING LIGHT EXPOSED!_ ” she sings, completely off tune now, because she’s laughing and Usopp is laughing, his face buried in his hands because _really._

 

“I never asked to know, never lied!” he finally wheezes, picking up where she left off.

 

“False,” Zoro calls from the window.

 

The two goofballs on the couch shriek with laughter and fall apart, no more singing, Zoro’s killed them both. After they’ve calmed down long enough to breath and Usopp’s realized Nami doesn’t plan to move from her spot sprawled across him, he reaches over her carefully to grab the sketchbook he’d been looking at.

 

“What is that anyway?” Nami asks, eyeing the book curiously. “It doesn’t look like yours.”

 

Usopp sucks his lips in, looking _distinctly_ guilty for a moment. “It’s Sabo’s,” he says after a moment. “I was looking through the books over there awhile ago and I found it on one of the shelves. I just sorta… kept it with me, until I had time to go through it.”

 

Nami frowns at him. “You’re thinking about that guy a lot.”

 

He shrugs a bit, cheeks darkening just a bit as he looks back down at the page he’s on. “I don’t know why,” he says after a moment. “I like his art. I liked when I saw it in the butterfly book, and I wanted to see more of his stuff… then I met him, and...” He trails off awkwardly.

 

Nami sighs and gives him a pat on the arm. “Oh well,” she says. “What kinda stuff does he draw?”

 

Usopp brightens a bit and turns the sketchbook around so she can see it. On the page is an absolutely gorgeous drawing of dragon. The work fills the page, a long necked scaly beast with massive horns. Every detail is meticulous and beautifully rendered, down to the individual scales, the reptilian nature of it’s eyes and wear in it’s horns. The picture is lightly colored in pencil with a range of oranges, leading into a lineless fire curling out of the dragon’s mouth.

 

Nami whistles, her eyebrows raising. “Whoa,” she says. “That’s badass.”

 

“What is it?” Sanji calls from the kitchen, glancing back at them curiously.

 

“A dragon!” Usopp holds up the sketchbook so he can see.

 

Sanji squints at it, then nods. “That’s nice. Is it all like that?”

 

“Yeah! He seems to really like fantasy creatures,” Usopp says, flipping back a few pages. “He drew a phoenix over here.”

 

“Hot chicken,” Zoro intones from his perch.

 

“ _It’s not a chicken!!!”_ Nami cries indignantly.

 

Usopp takes a deep breath, letting it out in a rush of shame. “He’s the worst,” he says, flipping to a new page. He shows it to Nami excitedly. “Look at this one!”

 

It’s a picture of a gorgeous man wearing a kimono that’s hanging half off his shoulders. His hair is gathered back at the crown of his head into a shimada style bun, and there’s a single curl of hair that loops down in the middle of his forehead, colored with a red at the end that matches the hint of lipstick on his mouth. He’s beautiful, with lean muscles detailed down his front through the open kimono. Enchantingly, there is a small ruff of feathers decorating the area around his neck like a feathery boa, colored in vibrant blues, greens, and yellows. His arms are cradled in front of him, a small brown rabbit tucked against his chest as he stares down at it with a tender expression, his soft blue eyes accented by long wiry eyelashes that flare at the ends, and an almost smile touching his lips. His hands are taloned like a birds, and a plumage of black spills from his sleeves, and two long tail feathers are curling out of the back of his kimono.

 

“Whoa,” she whispers, reaching out to touch the man’s face. “He’s so pretty… what is he supposed to be?”

 

“I dunno,” Usopp says. “He’s birdlike and wearing a kimono, so maybe a tengu? But they have really long noses. I’d say harpy, but they’re only female, so.”

 

“Tengu wear monks robes,” Zoro calls from the window. “Or the garb of yama… something. Mountain monks.” He sits up then, looking over at the book. “Is he gonna eat the rabbit?”

 

Usopp looks over at him in surprise the same time Nami makes a disgusted noise at his comment. “Oh?” Usopp asks.

 

He gives him an annoyed look. “Perona is my sister,” he says, as if that’s an explanation. And really, it is.

 

“Fair,” Nami says, flopping back down on the couch. “Also, who says harpies only have to be girls? What happened to equality? Let men be harpies.”

 

They can hear Sanji laughing from the kitchen, and Usopp pats Nami’s stomach placatingly. “Okay, he’s totally a harpy.”

 

Nami looks satisfied, so he continues flipping through the sketchbook. He loves every line, honestly, he doesn’t remember the last time he’d admired someone elses art so completely. The pages are filled with dragons, phoenixes, faeries, and things he doesn’t have words to describe. He also finds places from around the preserve, like the main house and the park from the forest. He finds a house that looks like a giant stump is growing out of it, and a sprawling campground dotted with fire pits, tables, lights, and a throne at the crest of it all.

 

It’s all incredible, and he’s content flipping through the pages, wishing he could tell Sabo how much he likes his art. And that’s when he finds it.

 

“Hey, Nami, look at this,” he says. “He drew a person.”

 

Nami blinks, leaning up a bit to see the page – and nearly falls off his lap. She scrambles to get into a sitting position, her heart racing in her chest. “Let me see that!” she demands, grabbing the book from Usopp’s hands before he can react.

 

A wide smile. A straw hat.

 

“Zoro,” she says slowly. “Is this the boy you saw?”

 

Zoro looks over at her sharply. Usopp looks confused, and so does Sanji, rolling into the room with a tray of food balanced on the arms of his chair.

 

“What boy?” he asks, setting the tray on the table. Tender spice rubbed chicken swimming in tomato and green peppers served on a bed of brown rice and fried mushrooms (begrudgingly, Usopp’s plate has no mushrooms).

 

Nami looks over at Zoro uncertainly, but he only nods as he heaves himself to his feet to come inspect the picture. “Zoro thinks he’s been seeing a guy around our age on the preserve. He saw him once when we got here, and he thinks he saw him yesterday in the park, too.”

 

“I’m not sure _what_ I saw,” he mutters, holding out his hand for the sketchbook. “When we were leaving the park yesterday, I thought I heard something, so I looked back.”

 

The image of a pair of bronze legs tucked up against a small torso and a smiling face half hidden by a straw hat flitting through his mind. He’d looked away too quickly, and when he looked back, there were only branches where he thought the stranger had been. He’d told Nami about it last night after their light scolding from Shanks, which had mostly been the rehashing of the rules and dangers about going into the forest unsupervised, and they'd both tried to ignore the uneasy feeling as they fell asleep that there might be a stranger running around the preservation that no one else is aware of.

 

In a word, Nami looks concerned. In many words, she looks many things. “Well? Is that him?”

 

He takes the sketchbook. The young man in the picture is sitting on a formation of rocks, his sandaled feet resting in what looks like a small body of water. It’s hard to tell anything about his height because of the drawing, but he looks small – not particularly weak or particularly young, just small. His messy hair is shaded in pencil to black, and his eyes are brown. The rest of him is warm and tawny, peppered with lighter marks and darker marks around his elbows and knees that might be scars and bruises. His clothing isn’t much to speak of, a pair of worn blue shorts and a red vest that looks like it’s seen better days, a brilliant red coat that looks far too big on him, and the straw hat with the red band.

 

His face is everything to speak of. It’s hard to say that a picture may look mischievous, but he does somehow, with a depth to his eyes and the way his nose is wrinkled from how wide he’s smiling. There’s an impression of brightness to the whole of him, from the small scar weaving across the curve of his cheek like a second smile to his eyes and to the way he looks like he’s laughing at you, with you, and laughing just to laugh all at once. Zoro can almost hear that laugh in his mind as he stares at the picture.

 

_Shishishi…_

 

“It’s him,” he says after a minute. He doesn’t really know what he’s feeling right now. He thinks he should be feeling some manner of relief – after all, the boy he’s been seeing and hearing around the preserve is not just a figment of his imagination and he’s not going insane or anything. But – but that just raises so many _questions_. Who is he? What does he have to do with Sabo? What does he have to do with the preserve – does Shanks know he’s here? Is he just another secret being kept from them for unknown reasons, or is he some sort of threat?

 

Frustration. Anger. _Irritation_. How the hell is he supposed to take this? He doesn’t know anything, and he hates not knowing anything. It makes him feel vulnerable, and there are a million reasons why he refuses to feel vulnerable in any situation, _ever_. So he’ll have to fix that.

 

There are words written in neat script across the top of the page. _The Smallest King Of The Rock_. Underneath them, in a messy scrawl, is a firm assertion – _im not small!!!_ – and when Zoro tears the page from the sketchbook, it rips right through them.

 

“Zoro?!” Usopp exclaims as Zoro folds the paper and stuffs it in his pocket. “What are you doing??”

 

Zoro doesn’t answer right away, as he’s too busy striding over to the window to snatch up his swords and affix them to his belt. When he finally does answer, he’s already halfway to the door. “I’m going to go find him.”

 

“The _hell_ you are!” Sanji snaps, wheeling as quickly as he can over to the door. “We’re not going out into the preserve again.”

 

Zoro plants his foot firmly on one of Sanji’s wheels and pushes hard. “We’re not. I am. I’m going to go find this guy and --” And what? “And punch him in the face.” Because that’s rational and Zoro is a rational person.

 

By the time Sanji is able to scramble around to right himself, Zoro is already out the door. “Fuck!” he snaps. He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. Usually if Zoro runs off like this, he’s the one who runs after him. He’s the fastest out of their small crew and he’s the only one who can match the other in strength and temperament enough to force him out of any stubborn shitty moods he works himself into. But with his injury, he’s falling short and can’t do much of anything. “Usopp!”

 

Usopp jumps, having had been making himself small in the corner of the couch from the shock of Zoro’s outburst. He looks at Sanji with wide eyes. “Y-Yeah?”

 

He jerks his head to the door. “Go after him. You have to, you’re the only one we can count on keeping up with him at this point, and if he gets lost – which he _will_ – we’ll never find him.” He rolls himself over to the table to grab the tray of food so he can begrudgingly put it away. It really _should_ be eaten fresh, but none of them are going to have time to eat right now and eating reheated food is better than wasting it.

 

Usopp looks like he wants to protest, because he _does_ , there is not a single part of him that wants to go charging into the preserve after Zoro, except maybe the small part that knows Sanji is right, Zoro will get lost, and that means he could get _hurt_ and –

 

He stands up, grimace in place, and charges out the door after Zoro.

 

Nami is standing as well, and she feels pulled in so many directions. She wants to follow Usopp and Zoro, because while Usopp isn’t as terrible with directions as Zoro is, the preserve is huge and there’s more than a small chance that they’ll both end up lost. She has the best sense of navigation out of them all, like how Zoro is strongest, Sanji is the fastest, and Usopp has the best eyes. But she also knows that she has no hope of catching up to them, and that they need help from Shanks or Franky or Benn. Do they know this kid is here? Is he some sort of dangerous former employee? He looks so _young_ though...

 

Images from _Better Watch Out_ flash through her head and she drops her face into her hands. _Stop_ that Nami. No more terrible netflix horror movies with Usopp. She slides both of her hands back through her hair and groans. “Well, this sucks,” she says, for lack of anything else to say.

 

“You said it,” Sanji answers, putting the last of the food away. He sighs. “What are we going to do?”

 

Nami taps her foot against the floor while she thinks, brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “But we need to find one of the adults.”

 

Sanji gives her a wary look. “Are you sure we can even trust them?”

 

She sighs. “Look, I have no idea what the heck is going on around here, but.” She gives him a helpless look. “Yasopp is Usopp’s dad. I don’t think he’d ever put him in danger, they love each other. The adults are hiding something from us! Hell yeah they are. But...” She shakes her head. “We can’t jump to bad conclusions like that. I don’t think they’re bad people.”

 

Sanji considers that for a moment before nodding his assent. “Benn said he had business in town today and I have no idea when he’ll be back. Shanks is – wherever Shanks goes when he’s not around here. I have no idea where Franky is, he left a little while ago.”

 

Nami bites her thumb. “...It’s around lunchtime,” she says finally. “He might be with Sabo.”

 

Sanji nods sharply and wheels himself towards the door. “I’ll head down there and look for him. You should stay here, Nami.”

 

“Why?!” she exclaims, though even through her frustration of being left behind, she knows why.

 

Sanji gives her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Nami-swan. One of us should be here if Shanks and Benn return. Shanks said the cabin was just past the garden fence, so it shouldn’t be too hard for me to get to.”

 

And Sanji is, even injured, the one who’s most likely going to be capable of handling anything the preserve has to throw at him. Nami sighs and nods, wrapping her arms around herself uncomfortably. “Yeah,” she says sullenly. “Hurry back, alright? I’ll wait.”

 

Sanji flashes her a charming grin. “I try never to keep beautiful women waiting.”

 

She manages to crack a small smile. “What a gentleman.”

 

He’s gone too fast and she’s alone. Not knowing what to do with herself, really, she moves back to the couch and sits down. She kneads her forehead gently, trying to sooth some of the nerves ravaging her at the moment. There is something off about this whole place, and part of her has known that since got here.

 

For one, everything was—for lack of a better word— _perfect._ From the flowers to the grass to the garden, the trees around the preservation, to the very house itself. She’d likened it to a scene from a storybook before, ever lovely and unchanging, and the more she thinks about it, the more accurate it seems. Beautiful and unchanging, and way too perfect for only being tended to by just six people.

 

She looks down at the sketchbook in front of her. Zoro had thrown it down on the table before he left, and it was still open to the now-ripped remains of the drawing he’d taken. Underneath it is a picture of the same orange scaled dragon from the first picture Usopp had shown her, and the boy in the strawhat and the sea captains coat laying across it’s stomach sound asleep. She bites her lip, reaching over to flip the page up. The next page had the messy outlines of a man with wavy hair standing by a house, an arm above his head and shirt hanging off his body. She flipped past it – another page had been ripped out, but this one had a much neater tear.

 

She smooths back the ripped page and considers the drawing on the new page. It’s two bushes, bursting with flowers, and a tray of milk in the center. Dancing around the edges of the milk were tiny people no bigger than Nami’s palm. There were skinny ones and large ones and ones that were neither, ones with long hair and short hair and no hair at all, pale ones and brown ones and golden ones, and ones with skin in colors like purple and navy and even green. They all had wings – wings like butterflies, and dragonflies, and even ones with wings like birds.

 

And towards the head of the tin was a pretty girl with long blue hair, warm brown skin, and big puffy butterfly wings that were a swirl of blue and pink.

 

Nami takes a deep breath. Her phone is still playing music, something low and dramatic, probably by _Svrcina_. Her head is swimming a little, so she barely notices until the music swells and the words begin drifting through the air. A memory, old and dusty, floats to the forefront of her mind. The first time she’d heard the song, sitting on the floor of Zoro’s goth-pretty sister’s bedroom, admiring the lace on the garter belt peeking out from underneath the ruffles of her miniskirt and pretending she wasn’t.

 

_In the early morning_

_The darkest dawn_

_Here the trumpets sounding_

_Loves final song_

 

Perona could tell what Nami was looking at, and made sure to shift accordingly, tucking her beautiful legs to the side so they were on full display. Neither of them acknowledged that the exchange was happening, because they were studying, and they weren’t really friends, just study partners for the project they were working on for science. Their books were spread out in arc in front of them, notebooks pulled close so they could scribble down whatever errant thoughts on the project that came up.

 

_Kiss Me_

_Fade away just far enough_

_I'm drifting_

 

Nami remembers thinking urgently to herself that she didn’t even like Perona as a person. Perona had always been the mean girl, looking down her nose at everyone as she strode down the hallways, shoulders squared and stride confident in ways that Nami’s high school self never felt. Even beyond the bad first impression, she was Zoro’s sister, and pretty, too pretty, in an almost untouchable way. A perfect person, who put effort into being perfect, so interfering with them always felt wrong. Even after she got to know her – through Usopp, of all people – she never considered kissing her. High-school Nami had never kissed _anyone_ before, and the thought of kissing a beautiful girl like that made her palms sweat (and for all that Zoro pretended that he hated his sister, she knew he’d probably flip her into a ravine if he knew she’d tried).

 

_Run for the heavens_

_Sing to the stars_

_Love like a lover_

_Shine in the dark_

 

So she looked around when the desire hit her, the strange desire to touch her milky thighs and kiss her pink painted lips, desperate for something else to think about. There was a miniature garden in a box outside her window, built into the slope of the roof and filled to bursting with beautiful flowers. In the center, resting by the window, was a small round tin of milk.

 

“What’s that?” Nami had asked.

 

“Milk and cream,” Perona responded boredly, flipping through their science book.

 

Nami wrinkled her nose. “Why? Won’t it spoil?”

 

“I change it out every morning,” she says. “It’s for the fairies.”

 

“The… fairies?” Nami asked uncertainly. She knew Perona and Usopp believed in things like that, but she never had herself.

 

“Mhm,” Perona said, still not looking directly at her. “If you want a fairy to bless your garden, you have to give it an offering.” She finally looks at Nami, expression curious. “Fairies like milk and cream.”

 

_Touch you so I know that I'm not dreaming_

_Safe until the night is gone_

 

The memory fades, and Nami feels her heart racing. She stands up and walks out of the house almost mechanically, heading out into the yard as if she knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t. Even as her feet plant her in front of the bushes by the gate, even as she sinks to her knees in front of the milk tin.

 

_Drink the milk._

 

She doesn’t want to. It probably tastes really gross, and probably will give her some horrible disease that she’ll definitely die from. Plus, didn’t Usopp tell her once that magic – not that she was acknowledging that this was magic, even as all the nonsensical pieces fell into place around her – had consequences? If this was magic she was doing by drinking _whatever_ was in this tin, would she be opening herself to some extreme consequences?

 

Drink the milk, he’d said. Fairies like milk, she’d said.

 

She picks up the tin of milk and presses it to her lips. She feels stupid. If Sanji came back right now and saw her, she’d probably die of humiliation. Her cheeks are already burning. She feels a little bit like she herself is burning, as she tips her hands, her head, and the tin back and lets the milk trickle into her mouth.

 

It’s warm, but not in the warm-milk-before-bed way, and that’s gross. It’s sweet, also, in a way she wasn’t expecting. She flinches away from the tin all the same, forcing herself to swallow what was in her mouth. She didn’t like it much, or at all, and she didn’t even feel different.

 

“Why did I do that?” she mutters, setting the tin back down. She’s starting to feel funny, and begins to wonder what kind of illnesses one can contract from spoiled milk. Isn’t cheese technically spoiled milk? Or it is curdled? Does it even matter? Is it even the same thing?

 

She pushes herself to her feet and sighs. Now what? She turns to head back into the house, a vague intent forming in her mind to grab Usopp’s computer and try to contact his father. Something flits in the corner of her eye and she stops, frozen – a bug?

 

“Nami,” says a soft voice. “I’m so glad you did that.”

 

Not a bug. A flutter of blue and pink, and a body smaller than Nami’s hand. A gentle smile, a kind face. Nami’s heart begins to race and she takes a stumble away. Of course she suspected – but in the way someone might joke with a friend that their house is haunted. It’s never true, because things like ghosts and fairies don’t exist. They _don’t_.

 

And yet.

 

“I’ve been so hoping you’d figure it out soon!” the small girl with the butterfly wings says, clapping her hands. “Of course I knew you _would_ , you seem very smart.”

 

Nami takes a shaky step back, her eyes locked on the – the – fairy? “I’m – I try,” she squeaks. “You’re – a fairy.”

 

“I am!” The girl flits closer and Nami’s heart does a terrified cartwheel. “My name is Vivi! I live in the Sanctuary you and your friends visited yesterday.” She holds out a tiny hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. Like this, I mean. We’ve met, already, technically, I-” She stops, eyes widening. “Nami?”

 

The answering scream is all she gets as Nami charges for the safety and relative normalcy of the house.

 

* * *

 

Zoro doesn’t exactly know where he’s going. That’s okay, though. He rarely does – he always gets to where he needs to be in the end.

 

He’s already been by the little park with the pond and it’s mystery ripples, but he hadn’t seen anything there. Rather than take the dirt path, he finds the felled tree and looks around it for any sort of indication the grass has been stepped on recently. He found a few soft treads in the area where animals probably went back and forth, nothing too interesting – until he gets to the stump of the felled tree and finds what he's looking for.

 

Footprints. Two, made when someone dug their feet in hard – probably when they knocked the tree over. He studies them carefully, then looks around – there. A trail in the grass a bit bigger than the others, almost wide enough for two people. He follows it with purpose, eyes narrowed in determination. He's going to find this kid and – something. Beat the crap out of him, probably. Get some answers maybe. He doesn’t know why he’s so irritated with this whole situation – he doesn’t like to be lied to, and he doesn’t like to be unaware of anything around him, sure, he was raised to be like that, from his time as an orphan and from his time with Mihawk – but there was something else. A restless unease just under his skin, crawling throughout the whole of him. Something is _wrong_. He just doesn't have enough pieces of the picture to pick out just what it is yet.

 

A sound catches his attention – a rustling of leaves. He turns quickly, his hand moving quickly to Wado’s sheath. He sees some of the treetops shivering under the caress of the wind, but nothing else. Slowly, he turns back to his walk, the unease blossoming further inside him.

 

The ground gets harder the deeper he goes, but the green only gets thicker. The plants change, he thinks, but he can’t be sure. Usopp is the plant guy, not him. A vine smacks him in the face and he grunts, turning to throw it away. He takes a few paces backwards and gets caught in another mess of vines – they seem to be trying to loop around his neck and arms, and that’s alarming in numerous ways.

 

He’s barely freed himself from the ropey trap and turned to keep walking, faster, this time, because really, fuck those vines – when his next step sinks into air and he falls. Plummeting unexpectedly does odd things to him – his heart skips, and an emptiness grows in his chest, making way for dread to pool in and make him feel sick, all in the time it takes to take a breath. His adrenaline kicks in the next breath and he twists the best he can and grabs madly at the cliff face. His palms scrape against the rock and his nails chip and bend, and his heart beating rapidly in his chest tells him he isn’t going to make it – he closes his eyes tight and a girls face flashes in his mind, a white sword, and a promise.

 

And then a strong hand clamps around his wrist. His body jerks and smacks against the rocks, knocking a ragged breath out of him. His swords clatter against the hard surface a few too many times and he looks down sharply. His sword belt has been torn and his swords are falling away, into the deep ravine he’d almost fallen into, and his heart sinks. That’s going to be a bitch to get down.

 

He looks up, finally, at his savior and he finds his heart skipping for the second time that day. Deep brown eyes stare into his own, wide and wearing alarm and relief at the same time. Black hair, a thready scar, and a straw hat.

 

“You,” he gasps.

 

“You!” he echoes, and his lips, previously hanging open in a winded gasp curve into a wide smile. “You’re not supposed to walk off of cliffs, stupid!”

 

Zoro feels his face heat up. “Shut up!”

 

The boy laughs, that loud, frustrating _shishishi_ , and begins to pull Zoro up. He’s got narrow shoulders and arms that look as reliable as pool noodles, but he pulls him up with ease, and soon they’re both laying on the ground beside the ravine, chests heaving, hearts settling back into their proper places.

 

Recovery doesn’t take long for Zoro and he’s sitting up, swinging around to stare at the kid, his irritation from earlier surging back up full force.

 

“Who are you?!” he snaps.

 

The boy looks at him, chest still heaving, grin still wide. “Luffy,” he says without hesitation. “Monkey D. Luffy! Your name is Zoro, right? Do you have another name?”

 

Well, he’d expected a _little_ more resistance. “Roronoa Zoro,” he says cautiously. Shit. Why’d he tell him that?

 

“People call you by Zoro, right? Can I call you by that?” Luffy asks, rolling onto side. He’s propped up on one arm and is staring at him like he’s the most interesting thing in the world.

 

It’s… unnerving. Enough so that his irritation slowly begins to ebb away. “Yeah. What are you doing here? Do you know Shanks?”

 

“I live over there!” he answers easily, pointing off in some random direction. “I was visiting Makino’s tree and I saw you walking, so I followed you.” He smiles brightly. “Of course I know Shanks! He’s basically my dad.”

 

“Right,” Zoro says slowly. He’s not sure what he means by _Makino’s tree_ , but the information that he lives somewhere in the wooded area on the preservation was – interesting. Alarming? Nothing really seems alarming after almost dying via extreme fall damage. “Your dad?”

 

“He’s been here since I was a kid,” Luffy says matter-of-factly. “He gave me my hat!”

 

Right. So Shanks _was_ lying to them. But why? He opens his mouth to ask more questions, but Luffy’s gaze cuts down to his waist and he speaks before Zoro can get a word out.

 

“Where are your swords?” he asks. “I saw you walking with them earlier!”

 

Fuck, right. He looks over to the ravine edge and grimaces. “They fell,” he says. He stands up and walks over to the edge and peers down. There seems to be grass down there, at least. “I’ll have to climb down at get them.” Getting more answers and maybe kicking Luffy’s ass can wait til after.

 

“No!” Luffy exclaims. “You can’t.”

 

Zoro turns to glare at him. “What do you mean no?!”

 

He points down. “They’ll eat you.”

 

What. “What?” He turns back to look again. Nothing but grass – moving. Moving grass. He kneels to get a better look. Not grass.

 

Snakes.

 

 _Many_ snakes. So… so many.

 

“What the fuck,” he whispers.

 

“Boa lives down there!” Luffy says, rocking back on his heels, as if that explains everything. “So all her girls live down there with her.”

 

“Who’s Boa?” Zoro asks. “Is she a snake tamer or something?” How many other people lived on this damn preserve? He can handle a few snake bites if it means getting his swords back. He can’t tell what kind they are from up here, but if they’re poisonous he’s going to need to be careful. If they live on the preserve Shanks will probably have antidotes for their poison. He’ll have to get a little closer to identify them so Shanks knows. He starts scanning the cliff side for a way down.

 

“Nope!” Luffy supplies helpfully. “She’s a Queen, I think. I don’t really care, ‘cuz she’s not my queen or anything, I live on the Emperor’s land. Anyway, I’ll get your swords back for you.”

 

Zoro looks up at him. “What? No. I can do it, they’re just snakes.”

 

Luffy laughs. “They’re not _snakes._ They’re _amazons._ ”

 

What. “What?” The more Luffy talks the less sense he makes. Zoro’s beginning to think the kid might just be crazy.

 

“I’ll go down and get your swords for you,” he insists. “It’ll be quicker if I do it – I have a few friends in her tribe. The swords are yours, so they can’t keep ‘em.” He walks to the edge – then stops. Frowns. He reaches up to touch his hat carefully, biting his lip just a bit.

 

“Scared?” Zoro asks. “I said I’ll do it.”

 

“No,” Luffy says dismissively. “I just don’t think I should take this down there.” He reaches up and touches the red band around his hat. Slowly, he undoes it and pulls it off – there’s another red band underneath it, the exact same color. The length he’d pulled off hangs loosely in his hand and he stares at it contemplatively for a moment or two, then he turns to Zoro. “Can you keep this safe for me?”

 

Zoro stares at the length of cloth. It doesn’t look like anything special – red and soft and plain. The first thing that comes to mind is a derisive _this is stupid_ , but it fades out to be replaced by _Wado would seem like just a sword to anyone else._ Even so, he feels a little dumb as he holds out his hand for it. “Sure.”

 

Luffy smiles brightly, eyes lighting up like he’d just won something. “Awesome!” He reaches past Zoro’s hand and ties the cloth around his arm, just above his bandanna.

 

“Hey --” he protests. “I said I’d _hold it._ ”

 

“It’s okay!” Luffy chirps. “It’s safer this way! Look, it’s already changed colors.”

 

What. He looks down, and sure enough, the bright red cloth has faded to black to match his bandanna. He makes a bewildered noise. “Why did it – ?” He looks back up at Luffy and the words die in his mouth.

 

Vermilion scales stretch up from Luffy’s nose and fan out over his eyes like a mask. His eyes are suddenly reptilian and his skin is spotted. Are his ears _fins?_ He grins at him, revealing a row of wicked sharp teeth.

 

“Be right back!” he says. He turns and runs for the edge – and dives straight off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than my other chapters because it was actually getting way /way/ too long with Sanji and Usopp's parts, so I split it in half. The next part of the chapter comes out on the 14th! I'm also posting a canon compliant ZoLu oneshot I wrote with my girlfriend later today, so check it out if you want!
> 
> (LUFFY AND ZORO FINALLY MEET, YES... and Luffy just gives him his pelt, like. Luffy, baby, no.)

**Author's Note:**

> MIhawk is Zoro and Perona's dad, because it's hilarious to me


End file.
